Joel Young Blog.com

My brief glance in the wisdom of a two year old is going to lead me to several places this week. But the beginning of this windy road has to be approaching and answering the question of, “How much do I really need?” Broad, yes I know, but applicable to all areas of life. If you haven’t read part 1 of this series of posts, you may want to back up and read it first so you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Realizing first that we all approach the question of, “How much is enough,” every day of our lives will no doubt help us in our efforts to live beyond the things that we posses. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about balancing a budget or deciding for or against that third plate at the buffet we have to figure up how much we really need hundreds of times every week. But for most of us, it’s not a , “Let me stop and really think about this,” decision because our mind has been made up long before we are approach the dilemma.

If you’re saving for a vacation, you won’t indulge in impulsive splurge purchases. If you’re on a diet, you will (or will try to) stay away from fatty foods with little nutritional value. Why? Because your mind has already been made up and you’re headed in a clearly defined direction.

When it comes to our most valuable resources and determining how much is enough for us, and how much is available to bless others with, it starts with a decision. For some of us the answer to that question will be hard to see because our definition of necessity will shift as we mature, but for others it will seem very clear and easy to discern. The question then is, are we willing to act on it?

Will we search for ways to utilize the over-abundance of resources we have at our disposal, or will we live in that over-abundance. I’m not trying to curse anyone because of what they have, but rather hoping that we’ll all see the abundance in our lives and search for ways to leverage that for God’s purposes. Living a life of generosity and Christ-like sacrifice doesn’t just happen by accident. It is the result of a conscious decision to accept God’s provision and live in confidence of that.

There has been a lot of adjustment in the Young household since the birth of Cooper, but no one has felt that more than our oldest son Reed. He’s been the only kid in the house for over two years now, and even though he obviously adores his new little brother Jenna, my wife, and I have been very intentional about soaking up our individual time with him. So, the other night Reed and I took a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese’s. Just the two of us. We spent hours playing every game in the joint, and he had an absolute blast. The only disappointment was that they no longer had a ball pit. I was really looking forward to that.

We weren’t really counting the tickets we won as we played. We just enjoyed playing the games, but at the end I figured it would be cool to get a little something with our tickets. Reed handed the clerk his tickets and asked for, “Two suckers please.” Taken back by his politeness and confident swagger the clerk handed him three suckers as a bonus and we went on our way.

When we got in the car I asked Reed what he thought of the suckers he had won with the tickets and his response was, “There’s three! One for Mommy, Daddy, and Reed.” He didn’t leave out his new brother, but quickly reminded me that, “Not one for Cooper. Babies don’t need suckers.” Guess he was right about that.

As we drove home I started thinking about how drastically different my two year old is from the the two year old I was. If someone would have given me three suckers, they would have ALL been mine. But my son’s first reaction was to spread the wealth. He knew that he only needed one sucker and was excited that he could give the other two away.

This week I want to unpack this idea as it applies to our lives, our attitudes, and the church. Whether we realize it or not, we all live lives of abundance. What makes some of us different is how we view and what we do with the other two suckers.

I don’t know why, but my life has felt “forced” lately. I’m not really sure what I even mean by that, but if you have ever been in that place where nothing feels natural, even normal things aren’t easy, and you seem to be living in an extended period of “water-treading” then you know what I mean. Part of my feelings have been created by the natural process of life, and the fact that my wife is 9 months pregnant and could give birth any day now, but part of it is the way I have been forcefully plowing through my life in recent weeks.

If you’re like me, when you want something to happen you usually try to make it happen in a very forceful way. My desire to control my life has lead to a desire to control the outcome of my life, and if you’re a fellow “Type-A” personality then you can probably relate. The problem is, I’m not supposed to have my hands on the wheel. That stuff is supposed to be surrendered to Christ, and I need to be allowing His purposes happen through me.

This week at Horizon I issued a pretty steep challenge to our church. I commissioned everyone who is a part of our church to physically record the names of three people in their life that they are going to share the vision/mission of Horizon with over the next week. Then, hold ourselves accountable to the people they have committed to reach out to in this way. The hope is not that these people will be converted or inspired by force, but that through our actions we will open up a door and allow God to speak into their life through our church.

It’s very easy to view the advancement of the gospel as something that we need to force. To see it as something that will only happen if we say the right things and have the right answers. But really, all we have to do is show up and LET God make it happen through our simple actions. If we live in his purposes, then we will live in his power. Never forget that.

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?

Our personalities make us all very susceptible to certain tendencies. The things that drive us in a positive direction can sometimes cross left of center and veer right into the path of something that can very easily destroy us.

For me, I have a very focused personality, and if I’m not careful I can become too focused on something and forget about EVERYTHING else. I also have a very addictive personality. When I get involved something I get involved with everything that I have. Because of my personality it’s hard for me to do anything half way. That doesn’t mean that I need to change. It just means that I need to be aware.

Because I know what my personal tendencies are I keep myself in constant check. I make sure I’m committing to things that are worth my time and effort. I only focus on things that are worthwhile and beneficial. Otherwise, I would end up in some dark places.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a pastor, CEO of a company, or a soccer mom, we all have personal tendencies that we need to keep in check. These things may be easy to see for some of us, but for others they are hiding in plain view as positive things, but when left unchecked can cause a lot of destruction in our lives.

Here’s my challenge to you. Get to know yourself and keep yourself in check. Your life will have much more of an impact if you can.

I’m just now coming off one of those weekends that serves as a good reminder of exactly what God has called me to do, and why I continually try to do it.

I saw people step out of their situations to generously give to people in need.

I saw churches unite under the mission of The Church for greater effectiveness.

I saw the Gospel change people’s lives and perspectives.

I saw people worship God with all they have.

I realize that not every pastor gets to see these things happen every week or even in their lifetime, and that I am incredibly blessed. It’s a blessing that God can fill my heart as I serve him because as my friend Mike reminded all of us at Horizon on Sunday, “He doesn’t owe it to me!”

Joy is a blessing, not a right!

Today while searching for someones email address on their company’s website I accidentally clicked on their email address instead of copying it and my computer automatically launched my default email program, which I don’t use, to send the message. I quickly exited out and went about my normal routine of sending them an email, but what I didn’t realize was that the email program was still collecting emails from my account, and continued to do so for about 3 hours. When the process was finished I heard a beep and after figuring out what it was I saw that it had imported over 10,000 messages from my email account.

It wrinkles my brain to think that I have that many messages sitting in my email account right now, and that doesn’t even include the messages that I have deleted over the years. What’s even more mind boggling is that I have read ALL of these message. I couldn’t tell you my favorite nor do I have one that sticks out in my mind, but I’ve read them all.

Today, this week, this month, this year, this decade, and in your lifetime you will be bombarded with thousands of messages at the same time. You probably won’t remember most, or any, of them because they don’t have a lasting impact. However, there is ONE message that has a lasting impact and eternal significance. The message of Jesus Christ. Sound too cliche? Well, get over it. He died for you when you hated him and knows everything about you yet still loves you, so there. Nobody’s gonna top that offer.

Why not live in it, preach it, teach it, spread it, share it with the world in everything you do? Cut through the clutter in 2010 and give people a message to consider that really matters.