Well, good afternoon and or evening depending on if you're watching the tape. I'd like to begin today by reading Just a little section from Jonathan Edwards regarding the affections of the heart in terms of our relationship with God And I'm just want you to really hear kind of his his perspective on really the Exercising of the will and when he calls the spring of our our spring of action it comes from the excerpts of Religious affections. I'm gonna read this and this is a great thing So just listen kind of relax. Think about this. What are you saying in the middle of this day of stress? Etc. Listen as I read a person who has a foreknowledge of doctrine and theology only Without religious affection has never engaged in true religion Now the word religion and our day and age sometimes isn't that popular We hear people say things like Christianity's not a religion. It's a relationship which is The point is made, but it really is a religion. It really is one of the world's great religions and the Lord one of the largest in the world so He speaks of it not to say it's not a relationship. He's simply saying those who are really interested in the things of God Aren't engaged if their hearts not in it. He continues nothing is more apparent than this When our religion takes root within us only as deep as our affections attract it There are thousands who hear the word of God who hear great and exceedingly important truths about it themselves and their lives And yet all they hear has no effect upon them Makes no changes in the way they live. The reason is this and I think this is important here They are not affected with what they hear now in youth ministry. You're going to deliver great talks You're going to take students to conferences where great talks are delivered small groups that are dynamic and there will be moments when you see very little change And it's going to be frustrating and it's going to be challenging. There are many who hear about the power the holiness and the wisdom of God about Christ and the great things Which he has done for them and is gracious in meditation to them and yet they remain exactly as they are in life and in practice I am bold in saying this But I believe that no one has ever changed either by doctrine by hearing the word or by the preaching or teaching of another Unless the affections are moved by these things. That's pretty bold. You said it would be no one ever seek salvation No one ever Christ for wisdom no one ever wrestles with God no one ever kneels in prayer or flees from sin With the heart that remains unaffected in a word There is never any great achievement by the things of religion without a heart deeply affected by those things true religion he says The Holy Scriptures clearly see religion as a result of affections namely the affections of fear hope love hatred desire joy sorrow gratitude Compassion and zeal and then he takes the rest of this chapter and goes through each of those emotions Talking about the significance of our heart and connection to what Christ has done for us that it really should move us now I received this book maybe ten years ago and I remember reading this at that time and I wrote in the column how Does one become affected? It can one make oneself affected And then I wrote the question is not how do I become affected? But why am I not? The answer I wrote to this question will lead to true affection for you and me in a place like covenant Theological seminary where we do study great truth great doctrine great theology The challenges of student is sometimes to be so consumed with these things and Really allow the heart not to be affected by the truth of which you're learning. I know my own experience here That was true. It certainly isn't the desire of your professors the desire of even your heart But it's something that can easily happen as the weight of all that we have to read all that we have to write all that we have to preach all that we have to do Can easily begin to be something that numbs us from the affections of what God has done and will continue to do And I want to encourage you in those moments to step back away from it and think of Christ Think of the work of Christ think of the person of Christ. Remember that first devotion we had Don't rejoice Of what you've seen me do rejoice that your name is written in heaven and so in those moments when it just seems like there's too much Remember the very sweet story of Christ definitely cross what it means for us. Let's pray Jesus far too often we get bogged down thinking of things and Even good things lord But sometimes these things take us away from really the joy of knowing you And I know the world today Lord is looking for people who have authentic faith People who really believe in what they say they believe in who live it That there is an affection attached to their God and we shamefully confess Lord that some who believe in false gods Who are involved in false religions Lord they do not lack affection But their affection is in something that's not real not true. We on the other hand Lord know you're true We understand the reality of your presence in our life and yet Lord we can remain unaffected and we confess our Need to to know you Lord and we confess our dependence upon you to even make us effective And so we would cry out and ask the Lord that you would make us that way even today in this class Even as we talk about youth culture even as we talk about our own identity and that you would transform us Even now in this hour or so we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen We're gonna take off from where we left off last time talking about identity In the section called restoring my identity and what I'd like to do is I'd like to just take a couple minutes for you to To quietly reflect upon this question Name five books That have been the most influential books in your life now the Bible is gonna be assumed So I want you to do other books besides the Bible They don't all have to be written by Christian authors Maybe there's a novel that just hits you in a place that really taught you a lot about God and a lot about yourself But let's just take a little like a minute minute and a half pin those down What are the five books that you would say if somebody asked you were the most significant books in your life? And then we'll gather back together in just a minute or so and the list doesn't have to be perfect Five books. Let's spend a couple minutes just talking about What books you you put down? Let's do it just who would like to share the five books and It could be kind of you know, it was always interesting to find out what you put. So who's started us off Did everybody get five or three? one All right, let's just start up front and center. David five books three that Really, in fact, me Desiring God, John Piper Future Grace by John Piper and then the journey of desire by John L. George. Okay. Yeah, it books all right Steve Hard to remember the name of the book to read Communication book
That's fine. I've done that before. All right back row. Anybody want to share the books. Yeah See a lot of community
Okay, good, all right, somebody else Yeah, I'm not really live. Yeah Good
Really neat and the group of grace who would love to hear that that's on video. That's a good plug for that book and the group of grace You and my Dr. Brian Chapel president of covenant theological seminary. All right, other books. Okay, Dan Hansen God You can know. Yeah, the roots of sorrow. Yeah, good. All right Reason I asked the question is because books shape our lives Whether you love to read or not There's going to be in that question people are going to have different answers to different things some people love to read They read all the time Lots of ideas lots of knowledge lots of experience through the readings John Piper was one of my favorite writers largely because David's dad was a primary influence in my life as well as his own son David And John Piper's one of his favorite writers as well his dad discipled me and so there's a lot of similarity there in terms of the types of Books that we would read Piper's great quote though. He says books don't change people's lives Paragraphs do that's a great line Paragraphs do and he's one of the greatest writers are putting together paragraphs and even sentences That just sting in a way that makes you say I need to deal with that I need to work through that The reason I start off this warning talking about books is because of our own identity in the syllabus Listed a section where some very famous people have listed the books that have been most influential in their life This was recorded from Kent Hughes who's a pastor. I believe in Illinois Or Ohio one of those dates big church But it's called disciplines of a godly man He now has a commentary series for preachers that runs just excellent stuff great for the preacher And he actually had hundreds of people that he'd asked this question to and I just listed a few things here Like the late James boys, you know Calvin's institutes was one of the highest in the list Inspiration and authority of the Bible history of the Reformation basic Christianity And Romans You can begin to think about who he is what he did and how these books begin to shape and influence his life For instance, R.C. Sproul freedom of the will by Jonathan Edwards He says that that is the most influential theological book ever written in our country ever That's pretty significant for someone like R.C. Sproul to say that might be something to look at bondage of the will Institutes god modern philosophy a time for truth and then power golf I love that at the end, you know That's an influential book he loves to golf. I think it's so neat that he ties it in there But you can see from these titles the kinds of books that have shaped and influenced his life Well, the same thing is going to be true for you and in the way the Christian world works now Books are being pumped out constantly. I remember when Max Lakato first wrote his book I'm not sure which one it was, but it was like six hours one Friday our god came here one of those books And now it seems like every year or two he has a new book coming up swindle was like that Eldridge is now like that with three books in the last two or three years Very good writer. It's just interesting to see how that comes and people will grab hold of this material And allow it to really shape their lives and their identity Which is an important thing John Piper actually was under the Philosophy that if you would take one person And study all the things that they have written Everything you can get your hands on it will greatly shape your life and who did you pick Jonathan Edwards Who am I read just a few minutes ago? That is a powerful understanding about the way in which god uses people With great understanding of scripture To put words on paper that you and I can then take and understand the reason I ask classes about the faith five favorite books They have is because it really begins to show the diversity of how many different types of books we read And what that looks like even those who are taking the access program will go through that and ask the question Oh, which books are most influential in your life? Sometimes pride can well out to me and say oh my list is better than yours Not necessarily. It's simply books will hit us in different ways For instance, if you ever read a book that you thought was incredible give it to a friend and they say It didn't hit me the same way. It just happens stages of life where we're at the guy will use those things And I bring in that to our bear because we were talking about restoring our identity We talked last time about the call of youth ministry and the cost of the call And the key there's going to be our identity. How do we work through it? Today's a perfect day for me to talk about identity because it would be very easy for me to feel very inadequate Very unsuccessful in the way in which I minister to students the reason is because one of my key students key leaders over the last couple years In the last six months has really just plummeted in her faith just begin to trump to you know fall trip Stumble all the way down who once was leading worship in our youth ministry with an instrument playing along The light of Christ shining brightly through her eyes suddenly in the last six to nine months There's a dullness in her eyes you can see when you look at her the love of Jesus Christ Though he still loves him completely She's just resisting that kind of passion and suddenly becoming much more attracted to the forbidden fruit And so last night I get a phone call from another student who says so and so Did this on Sunday night. I'm not calling to gossip. I'm calling to inform. I'm very concerned I said thank you for the call and I knew I needed to respond appropriately What I did was set up an appointment this morning with her parents to dialogue about the consequences of what she's doing That they had no idea about it's pretty serious and it's never fun to go to someone and say are you aware that your son or your daughter is dealing with this At the same time. I'm communicating that to them. I know that in the back of their minds They've got to be processing this question Why the brought up in the church she's attended all these conferences She's had good teaching why and at some point a youth pastor is going to ask the same question or a volunteer Some but he's going to say why and ultimately they will come to the question of what have I done or not done to contribute to the problem Does that make sense and suddenly you can leave the meeting going? Do they think it's my fault? They think it's my lack of ability to reach her to keep her interested in God and that's a question For many that causes them to lose interest to burn out to be paralyzed by their inability to change people's lives Does that make sense and so we will be searching for ways to cope with that struggle and that's true in all ministry Because this sheet are going to do things that aren't good the sheep are going to be stupid They're going to go eating pastures that they shouldn't eat in they're going to get dangerously close to the fence Where the wolves will be able to attack and you and I are going to struggle to watch their lives literally Collapse towards destruction, which is what the scripture tells us the wide road leads towards destruction But that wide road for us also exists and it's not always in terms of gross immorality It could be the wide road of where we're so consumed with ourself and our identity They were doing nothing but focusing on how we Can feel really good about ourselves how it can be better administrators how we can be better this this or this But at the core of it or not taking care of our heart Does that make sense? Therefore one of the most influential books in my five would be a book written by Gordon McDonald called ordering your private world You know that book read that book it was written in the 80s a great book I mean very much a tremendous influence in my life because I read it right when I entered into college And the book was about taking the components of your life like a puzzle and making sure you're bringing order to your life now much Great wisdom is written in this book But at the time it's being written There's also the practice in this man's life that's not going well And then there was a collapse and we probably know the history of what took place there great repentance And great transformation took place in his life The fruit of what he had written though was so powerful because it was truth Focus your life On Christ order your private world take care of your heart your garden before you are constantly trying to tend that of others And that's what I want to talk about briefly This afternoon Restoring my identity is a lifelong process of daily Reconnecting to Christ How do I reconnect that's a question that you and I must ask frequently how Now it seems like this is going to be simple It is we know the right answers But the practice of it is so complicated because everything is going to rush at you like wild animals each morning See as Lewis says that and we must simply do all we can to fight those animals off To connect to the source of life, which is Jesus Christ Well, how do we do it growing in my love for Jesus as I seek to understand his love for me It's going to consist in the basic things you've been taught since you became a Christian Somebody told you right after you became a Christian about Dr. Chappell's book Here you might read this book in the grip of grace or else you just picked it up out of the books or how did that work? Okay, your sister gave it to you and said I encourage you to read this you took her advice and you began to read it Finding out fundamental principles about God our father his grace for us as his children. It's a sweet thing So it's not complicated yet. It's the one thing You're going to be tempted to neglect above almost anything else in ministry You will because ministry will become the idol And God our father Jesus his son the Holy Spirit will be things that are easy to neglect until it's sometimes too late So what does it look like to restore identity first? It means time alone with the Lord What does it look like the way I was disciple was the way in which you were told 20 minutes a day In this fashion will be pretty much what you need To have a solid relationship with Christ and I'm not saying that's wrong at all It was very effective for me But in our busy culture we've allowed ideas of principles of management etc And a busy culture to kind of shape the way we spend our time with God So we produce things that I think are very unhealthy things like the seven minute quiet time Or the one minute Bible Now I appreciate the idea getting people in the word for just a little bit of time is a wonderful thing But let me ask you this how many relationships do you have with people that only require one minute a day Or even seven minutes a day Or even just 10 or just 20 Nobody would say in a pre-marital counseling scenario if you and your wife could spend You know seven minutes a day together You know maybe working out on a seven-minute ab at the same time You guys would have the most successful marriage that would ever exist now frighteningly for some couples That might be a lot of time already But never would that be the way it was designed to be never would that be the kind of time you would need instead You need lots of time Maybe not every day But at least schedule time periodically where you can spend time alone with the Lord Growing in your understanding was love for you growing in your understanding of his grace In a way that transforms who you are But the busy culture that we live in seeks to zap that from us And we get consumed with all the meetings all the phone calls all the emails all the postcards all the stuff that we've got to do to make it happen Does that make sense? And so time alone with the Lord is a priority that we must pursue and pursue hard How do we do I want you to take a minute and I want you to describe for me The way in which you spend time alone with the Lord and I want you to do it this way I want you to put it on a scale of one to ten We're going to dialogue on this you're not going to hand this in as a project, but one to ten one is no time at all I'm at a place where I know I'm spending an adequate amount of time adequate as a positive term here I know my relationships go well because the time I'm giving it five is I'm somewhere in the middle Head towards ten head towards one heading towards one would be I know I'm not spending the kind of time I should five on heading towards that I want you to take a minute and kind of scale that think back about today Think back about last week think back about this last month. Okay, just real quickly Pause for a moment and think about that Okay, time's up quick minute Now I'm going to ask you to be vulnerable and I know you're on videotape but I want you to be vulnerable and real with me for a little bit because this is very important Show of hands and the camera will see mostly just the backs of your head How many put ten just like I right now I'm having adequate time alone with the Lord And this is not about spiritual pride. Don't worry. Okay. How many of you put five? Okay, so somebody five to ten somewhere in there five to ten Okay, how many put the low five somewhere in that category? Okay, I'm not so concerned about that as much as I am What was it that you used to evaluate That answer on my question. What did you do? What did you think? What was your thought process to say whether it's inadequate Adequate somewhere in between see How I feel How much I feel like I have to give them if I feel confident It's just bus about some preaching you know, I sometimes it's about things to do Then who was beginning me something I've been I've been paying that adequate time with okay Sometimes I just feel like I don't have anything on for I can I don't feel worthy to say anything about Christ in these kids Then that's the opposite extreme Okay, so feelings are Connected to this in terms of how I feel unprepared to stand before other people in terms of delivering a message. Yeah I just just evaluating Recently just Study and read Books and just now sitting down with him and just Don't have time. I mean, I'm just saying this. Sure. Don't have time to just sit and listen And reflect To just raise and just say thank you Yeah, this and everyone else makes your soul spiritual because you're teaching You know, one or two times a week And I'll look at the horizon you've been it's a problem Yeah, we're gonna talk about that in a minute. How does preparation affect our spiritual life? Oh, cuz you know, yeah It's kind of You know, so many have to do Now I keep reminding myself that Not only is the word Our time together like I can throw our down Mm-hmm. Just anytime. It's like our work time. We need our down Mm-hmm. Just you know talk about the day and talk about life Because if not I might I find more and more than I don't just play the first Mm-hmm. I would come crabby
Okay, that's great. So you know, you need the downtime as well as the work time I think those are good distinctions you know study time preparation time But then there's just time to be alone and you can see the parallels of why Christ it uses the metaphor of the bride in the groom I'm gonna use that a lot as we talk about what our relationship looks like Because I think for a lot of us we do evaluate things based on whether or not We've spent adequate time You know when I was in high school it really was the 20-minute quiet time and I would be asked by the guy discipling me Did you have your 20-minute quiet time this week? How many times this week? For me an undisciplined pretty out of control high school student That was really pretty effective for me But at the same time as I matured Christ I realized that's probably not gonna be enough And I've got to think of a different way of evaluating this doesn't make sense If you don't realize that the students are gonna be discipling are really gonna pick up on the reality that something must be different Because no relationship succeeds when it has these specific amounts of time because there's not enough You know downtime. There's not enough time just to be yourself and to really reflect So I talk about time alone with the Lord this afternoon I want us to begin to think differently about it Especially in the way which we tend our own hearts but also others Because just simply looking at it's hand I spend this amount of time or this amount of time Is not going to be the most effective way to identify whether somebody is really doing well or not There's a man I know who went through some real extreme time times not long ago in terms of his marriage and he said this to front of mine He said I've gone 16 years and I've never missed a quiet time Wow One hand I go that is amazing that might be a record I mean that's incredible to think about and we said well Did you quite times look like good stuff yet he becomes so committed to the process That he really begun to fall out of love with the work of Christ in his own heart And he couldn't understand how he could have gotten here when he'd done all these things right does that make sense What's the nature of what our relationship with God is like it's a relationship It needs to be centered on us spending time alone with the Lord and as you grow in your relationship It's going to look different and in different seasons you're going to need different things That's why these things like the one-minute Bible or things like that can actually be effective But they can also be very harmful. How how can they be harmful? We just you think if you know what I've met my code today. Yeah And it's just a different way Yeah, just check off the list. I think you check off. All right. How else can they be harmful? Yeah Works righteousness. I did this. I did this therefore. I'm okay You see I don't think that God really intended us To have that kind of relationship where it was simply a list of things to check off I do think he meant for us to have time alone with him daily. He modeled that force I do think he had the desire for us to have days where we spent significant time Focusing on him and our world and its busyness also the same as in the church Has really conformed to the pattern of the world there and not be transformed and not been transformed But they were doing of our mind does it make sense and so as I think about Identity and restoring it one of the major things that has to be Realized the Moneheart is I need significant time with the Lord Period what does it look like different all the time, but I need it when I was younger I remember reading books like Ian Bounds power of prayer And I would read about these men of God who would rise very early in the morning if a red books like that and they go out What do you want to do after you read a book like that? You want to get up at the crack of dawn be like them know what happens
Alarm off you might even get a louder alarm you might put the alarm across the room You might even dress up for the day the night before so you can just hop out of bed You know whatever it takes to get up and go and make it happen and you might even succeed for a while, but then what happens? Yeah, it's true for you or for you when you start to try to work it out But it doesn't suddenly habits aren't born They're really broken they were short lived and you begin to feel discouraged I began to realize not long ago That I don't think the majority of these people who pray in that manner Really are men who were just super disciplined that got up at this regimen hour and went I believe that their heart was so in love with Christ And the burden of the brokenness of the world consume them at a place that they had no other choice But to get up and respond to the call of God each day to go be alone I forget who said this it may have been Luther or one of the great reformers said They looked at their schedule during the day And said their forces that so intense this 10-hour day I must certainly pray longer this morning You see it was the events of their life and where God had brought them that caused them to go to a place Where they were going to pray in the manner in which they did it's not simply about more discipline It's not simply about greater effort. It's about the place where God has called us Are we going to be receptive to that call and that's an important distinction And that's also important to realize it's where we're at and what we need like all relationships I'm married There are certain times in my life and our marriage have been married 10 years now Where we need more time than we had the week before Particularly if the week was busy we might need a lot more time now every week my wife and I have one date Every one week of a date night. It's typically Thursday night. We have a babysitter. She comes over. She babysits From usually six to midnight something like that and my wife and I we go out We do lots of different things on that night Some weeks we need to go talk about the family management of our house It's out of control things aren't working well budgets getting a little wild Discipline of the children is getting a little wild. We're not getting enough time together. We're not getting enough projects done We're not giving each other enough time to be alone with the Lord things like that Other times we need to get in the car and we love to road trip We love to just go for a while and we need to just drive Not long ago we live here in St. Louis. I said let's just go drive and so we took off towards Washington, Missouri where there's a sonic We love sonics and so we grabbed a trail. I made and we continued to drive and I realized my wife has never seen the capital of the state of Missouri So I drove her to Jeff City the whole time just talking no music is on We just simply listen now. There was another time where we got in a car and it wasn't gonna be about just talking It was gonna be about just doing some fun stuff together So I went into one of those little you know Love countryside stores are you know flying J Plaza one of those little truck stops And I walked up and I went to the CD rack and I just looked quickly for a CD that would be under five dollars All right, and I found one. I was like perfect my wife loves patsy client So I grabbed the patsy client thing paid for it along with some gas went into the car put it in and we started driving and then I hit play And also I didn't crazy, you know patsy client comes on singing and I go oh that's awesome Patsy client on the radio. I was like no, it's a whole CD and we just listened to it and laughed You see that's what our relationship needed our relationship with God is going to force us at times To realize it has to look different. Then maybe it's always looked certainly not all the time But you're gonna need to have some times where you're saying nothing's gonna get away Between my relationship with God Jim Burns who wrote the youth builder Talked me this a long time ago. He said there are times when you need to simply put on your calendar this day I will not be available period and you won't show up in your office You won't have a phone with you and when he told me this they didn't even have cell phones You will not take a pager you simply will go somewhere and you will be still all day He called them solos and he says now and you know, he's several years older than me I pretty much have one of those per week. It's not my day off It's not a day other than work except it's a solitaire and if I don't take that day to be alone I will not be able to accomplish Anything really at the level of God will want me to because I'm not connected to the primary source of my life And my identity will get cut up on all these other things does that make sense? So I want to encourage you as you think about spending time alone with the God with God you need to take Extreme effort and attention to your schedule To say Lord show me when and where I can do this tomorrow Covenant seminary will have the day of prayer Some will say all right a chance to catch up on this project and this project and this project I say that because I know I did it all the time and miss the opportunity To take time and it's not even a full day really To time in the morning to be here together and to pray and to focus It is so easy to become consumed with ministry and busyness That you don't take that kind of time to nurture relationship Things that I do now in my life are I love to be outside I love to go outside and at least once every two weeks I will disappear from my office from the seminary from anywhere anybody else knows and I will go be still With the Lord I'll take a brook a Bible a journal and I'll just begin to reflect on what God's trying to teach me One of the things I do to help is I get distracted pretty easily like a lot of people is I'll start my opening up my journal Which is just a record of prayer and such and I'll just write down one word statements For all the things that are distracting me Sometimes the journals filled Page after page with little bullets the boards consist of people's names They consist of projects they consist of sins Events whatever's distracting me from simply being alone and being with the Lord I confess that to him Then I usually take scripture and I always have scripture in mind when I'm doing this And I will just take a passage and I won't read for a record that day But just something a song a proverb Something from one of the acousels and just let it really soak into my heart Moving moving me to a place of prayer Now when we get into the reality of teaching a lot and Steve was talking about the seminary ago We can really cause our time of preparation to be that which is our quiet time. It's a good thing our bad thing Well, it depends There's nothing wrong with bathing in a text that you're going to be teaching on later In fact the best messages you're ever going to give are the ones you've spent a lot of time in But when you're only focusing on the audience whom you're preaching and you're in a text And you're not paying attention to your own heart you're missing a golden opportunity to really allow God's word to settle But the challenge is going to be this for most of you as youth pastors you'll teach Sunday morning You'll teach Sunday night you'll lead a small group You'll probably be asked to speak somewhere else all these things are going to build up and you're going to go When do I have time to prepare this now? We're going to talk about preparation later in the semester But you're stuck going I don't have time to do all this how am I going to do it and suddenly it is not sweet to you It tastes bad Because it's something you have to do as opposed to something you want to do and in any marriage where that begins to happen When you say to your wife or your husband, I feel like I have to do this I feel like I have to go in the state. Is that a healthy sign? Does anybody would your wife enjoy that day if you walked up? We're going to go in this date if like I have to do it. What's going to happen? She's not going to say I'm so excited to be with you Boom, it's over that night. I mean At least the day part The conversation might be had but it's certainly going to be like the fun you thought it might be That's the reality of the relationship We've got to focus on making this affection so real But you can't do it yourself. You've got to be so honest with God And that's going to take time to be still the components of a critical or this being alone Giving a significant time. I'm not going to give you an amount of time But you will begin to discern how much time and I am I going to need to be alone I've identified this way. You need that daily You need it weekly you need it monthly and you need it yearly where I would like to get one day Is that on an annual basis? I would love to be able to go away for a week I've just been alone being silent. I'm not in a position to do that right now Basically because of my children the status of our family That's not probably the best thing for me But that's my dream the one day I'll be in a place where I can go and just be alone be still for that season of time I've done it now up to a period of like three days But anything beyond that it really is a tax on the family. So I'm going to be careful there monthly though I need to get away I need to go away for at least a full day maybe an overnight or just to focus on my relationship with God Not vision for the youth group not vision for the youth and ministry institute Just simply my own relationship with God weekly. I need to have an extended period of time I think this is why God gave us the Sabbath But for most of us the Sabbath is not a very much of a reality in our life It's just one more day to be extremely busy and so we need to step back and think about what he was trying to teach us through Exodus 20 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy stick stays you shall labor and do all your work But on the seventh should be a Sabbath to the Lord your God What does it mean in our lives to have a day where we really step back And be still and then as I said earlier daily that there's time when is that going to be I promise you this It's going to be a battle for it because the enemy does not want you to experience any intimacy with Christ And so that's the reality about your fight. What do we do in that time and meditate on God's word We grow in prayer We engage in worship And then we frequently dialogue with prayer I'm sorry dialogue and have prayer with other believers and we read for transformation those five things Which I went over quickly are centered on the idea And that in our relationship with God We need to go to him Seeking him asking him to reveal to us his word and what he wants for our life The common denominator of those who have in my opinion a strong relationship with God Is that they give that relationship time Any relationship that exists requires time Most of us when we think about key relationships will say things like this Oh, I wish we had more time to be together I wish I had more time to call my friend I wish I had more time. I wish this night could go on forever. Oh the weekend went so fast. Do you know what I'm saying With God, I don't know if we typically speaking those terms We typically just say I don't have time Therefore, there's a fundamental lack of affection in our heart On what's taken place and that will eventually be revealed in the kind of ministry that you lead What do you need to do in those moments? Rich Mullins before he died and Michael Card Independent of one another as far as I'm aware We're working on projects that were very similar Rich Mullins was working on what he called, do I know The Jesus record does anybody know why he was working on the Jesus record It's written in the front of his album CD cover A paraphrase basically it was this I realized that for me and many of my friends We had gotten off track We had lost sight of the thing that mattered most I need to write this record about Jesus Has loved for me my love for him And just focus on Jesus at the same time Michael Card is writing a book called A Violent Grace which is a tremendous book a book about the work of Christ on the cross Told with beautiful detail In that book Michael Card shares the story Of being at the Great Wall of China and as it was there he was looking around at all the different inscriptions on the wall people had written Literally for hundreds and hundreds of years writing their names in there mark was here David was here Caroline was here Steve was here All these things and then in the midst of that he saw a cross And as he was looking at the cross he realized that really is the most recognized symbol in the world Second to a private Coke on McDonald's But the cross would probably be number one people would know what it meant They might not believe in it. They might even hate it But they know what it meant and as they saw it etched into this wall He realized, you know, that's as if Jesus was saying remember me. I was here Now I read that chapter on a Tuesday afternoon In the middle of January and a season of my life We're all had gotten ahead of the cross ministry missions administration speaking worship People's problems had began to consume my heart in my mind finally by the grace of God At his initiative I heard come you need to be with me Not an audible voice, you know what I mean And I got in my big 15 passenger van and I drove to Castlewood State Park Fortunately St. Louis has lots of state parks right around our area And I drove about 10 minutes to the state park and I pulled into the spot that I pull into all the time It's the first turn right after you gummed on this little gravel road and I parked my van It's a beautiful sunny day Not a lot of people at the park because it was cold And I sit in the van I hopped out of the pilot's seat Into the main bench seat right there Leaned back, propped up my legs on the two arm rest of the front seats And I began to read And I began to listen In the CD player was the Jesus album Just listening to some of the words And then I would begin to read Where I was with the violent grace It happened to be the chapter I just described to you about the wall of China and the cross remember me I was there And as I heard that I read that At the moment it was done I caught a reflection in the rear view mirror And I'm looking at it from a weird angle now because of where I'm sitting And as I caught the reflection in the rear view mirror it was a bicycler This is the park where a lot of people ride mountain bikes And he went right behind the van on the road behind me And as I saw him I was like wow that's interesting And as soon as he went by in the little rear view mirror I could see as clear as anything Across Perfectly Demonstrated right there It was across It was a sign That somebody had made and put in the ground That was to describe something About where they were heading For a moment I paused and I looked at it And I began to dismiss it as a free coincidence But then I realized you know Could it be That God is so much in love with me And so relational And so sovereign and powerful That he knew at this very moment when I had read this chapter And was listening to this album that I needed to focus my attention on Jesus More than anything else That God knew I would need that to the point he would show me at this moment today And I began to stop for a minute and think about it And then I began to let my theology really become a reality Is it so much true that I would then believe in the sovereign God That not only did you make this free coincidence appear But that actually one day he took a seed That would be planted in the ground A blown from a mother tree onto the ground Where would one day grow up and produce fruit At some point though it would be chopped down And used as a post to make a sign And that some ranger who worked at the state park Would take that sign, cut it down, put it in a post Take a post holder Go to this one specific position On this gravel road where I've parked hundreds of times Never seen a cross before though Take the postal digger and set it in the ground Would it be that God is so powerful and great that he would take the energy Of that bicycle rider Make him come down the street at the very exact moment that I'd finished the chapter To catch a reflection off the pedal in my eye So that when I looked up and saw him in the review mirror I would actually see the cross Do I believe that God's that powerful? Yeah, he is, he could do anything he wants But do I believe that he's that personal That my theology would cause that to create an affection in my heart That would say yes, he is that powerful Yes, he really does want me to know That he was there on the cross Dying for me And that the message I'm taking to all these people about the cross Is the one he wants me to bring Not simply with words and truth But simply with actions and in great love Yes, I want to tell you about Jesus because I believe in him My identity as his child is the most important thing I can tell you And so I step back and I thought it is true You wanted me here you called me here and I am here and you revealed yourself in a powerful way I spent a lot of time that day at the park I even drew the cross in my prayer journal and it's an ugly picture And I finally decided to leave And as I drove out around the circle in the gravel road This thing to the tires pound the gravel I looked back to see what the signs said And you could go see it today if you wanted to It's still there and it will be there for a long time I assume the signs simply said One way Jesus said I am the way I'm the truth and I am the life When your identity is beginning to suffer It's because you will no longer believe That Jesus is the way the truth And most importantly the life Instead you're going to believe that people's opinions of you are life Ministry of effectiveness is life Your own disciplines Your own giftedness are life But they aren't Jesus's life The way the truth and the life If you're forgetting that now Even in the midst of reading so many great books You need that time The rest of your life is going to be filled with distractions Mostly good You're going to need that time Get away Be still Know that I am God Those are things that your heart is desperately going to need This last section and then we'll stop here Becoming a man of God rather than a minister of God Ian Bound said this and I think it's profound Men are looking for better methods God is looking for men Youth ministry is often led with hype great personality And uncontrolled energy There are many students may attain We must always look for substance And what we are claiming to give them The substance is not just what we teach them on Sunday mornings It's what we live before them every days of our lives As Doug Phil says focus on being a person of God Before doing the work of God This class is now three weeks old Six sections And we've talked more than anything About our identity in Christ Why The rest of the course is going to be centered on methods In so many ways And how foolish it would be For me to stand up here and instruct On those things Before I would just exhort and encourage you To make sure the foundation of Christ Is key in your identity in him Is key As we begin to flip the pages And head towards the methods And understanding of all the methods May it never be That we lose sight Of who we are in Christ as the primary foundation As the ethos That we talk about Which is so important Let's pray Jesus We're going to take a break But we just want to make sure, Lord That you know our desire Is for you And the cross To be so clear in our hearts That every time we would see you on We remember that you were there And then we remember that you didn't stay there But you conquered death And you brought us life Thank you for this We pray in the name of Jesus Amen