Your Payback (9/30/2009)

When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. (Luke 12:48)

Looking back over your life, do you think you have been given much? Think about that for just a second.

Now, you may be thinking of all the great stuff your parents, or grandparents, your girlfriend or boyfriend may have given you – cell phones, Xbox’s, iPods, the latest jeans, jewelry, flowers. Even those of us who think they are “just getting by” can usually point to a drawer or closet at home full of “stuff.”

But I am not talking about the stuff we get for each other.

My question is – do you think you have been given much…by God? I mean, how much has God blessed you?

When we think about how much we have been given, we usually think of our drawers and closets and garages and basements and attics filled to the brim with all the stuff “we just had to have.”

But when we think about how much God has blessed each one of us, how easy is it for you to move beyond the “stuff”, and realize all the other cool things God does for you everyday?

Do you think about the natural skills you have, maybe in a sport, or in a hobby like music? Chalk that one up to God.

Do you think about your physical health? Chalk that one up to God.

Do you think about your family, your friends? Chalk that one up to God.

So when you take everything that you have into account, just where do you stand? My bet is that compared to most of the world’s population, you’re probably looking pretty good today!

But (oh you just knew there was a “but” coming) here’s the point – ask yourself this – based on what you’ve been given by God, what does he expect of you?

It’s really important to start changing the way you think not only about your piles of stuff, but EVERYTHING that makes you who you are. God has made you and given you what you have for a reason. He has a plan for just for you, a plan that is like no other. And my bet is that this plan includes you making some kind of difference in the world. This is what God expects in return for what He has given you – for you to make a difference in the world FOR HIM.

So, how can you start re-paying God’s generosity today by making a difference in the world? Have some spending money? Try doing something with what little cash you think you have for someone who needs it. In pretty good health? How can you assist someone who needs help?

Folks, the world is full of complacent people who just go through the motions everyday and shrug through shoulders when faced with opportunities to serve the one who made us and gave us everything we have. Be different, today! Step out in faith, today!

Start giving back to God, today!

The Teacher

So Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.
Exodus 18:24



Everyone in your life is a teacher, not just those people in your school today standing in front of the room with the title of "teacher" and armed with chalk, eraser, and gradebook.



Everyone in your life is a teacher…



…if you're willing to learn.



Think about it.



Each person you know has a unique set of life experiences.



Each person in your neighborhood has a unique body of knowledge.



Each person you pass in the hallway at school or work or the mall or the grocery store or on the street has a distinctive perspective on the world.



Each person on the planet has a one-of-a-kind set of opinions and creative ideas.



Each person in this world brings something new and different to the table.



Think of it as God's gift to you. Wow! When you think of the billions of nameless faces in the world, that is a pretty awesome gift. But it is also overwhelming.



Think of it again this way – God has surrounded you with hundreds of potential teachers. Some younger than you. Some the same age as you. Some just a little bit older than you. God has given you the opportunity to pick their brains, to learn from their experiences and mistakes.


Think I am kidding?


Just ask any one who has attended a youth group, a "snow camp", or a mid-week small group. My bet is that each one learned something from maybe the staff at the camp, the speaker at their youth group, from a small group leader, and most importantly, from each other.



But, there is the famous "but."



But…in order to take advantage of God's gift of bringing teachers of all shapes and sizes into your life, you have got to swallow your pride and admit that you can learn things from even the most unlikely people. Like your elderly neighbor. Like your older sister or brother. Like the weird exchange student at school. Or your youth leaders. Or even, gulp, your parents.



Moses was the established leader of thousands of Israelites. People came to him for advice. Yet, when his father-in-law spoke, Moses listened. And because he listened, Moses was rewarded with some valuable advice – words of wisdom that ended up making him a better leader.



Learn from Moses' example. Treat every conversation, no matter how silly you might think it may be, as a learning opportunity. Make it your goal to come away with a little more knowledge and wisdom than you had before the conversation started. In my few years in youth ministry, I have never ever come away from any conversation with a student or fellow leader without gaining something useful, or some great insight.



Do yourself a favor – develop a curious spirit. Learn to ask the right question at the right time. Instead of always thinking about what you're going to say next, think of what you can learn by listening. Take advantage of the gift of teachers that God has given you.



Have a wonderful day today…and make it wonderful for someone else by loving others around you as Jesus loves you.

Going Your Own Way (9/14/2009)

Saul died because he was unfaithful and disobeyed the LORD. He even asked advice from a woman who talked to spirits of the dead, instead of asking the LORD. So the LORD had Saul killed and gave his kingdom to David, the son of Jesse. (1 Chronicles 10:13-14)

"Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord." As epitaphs go, that's about as sad as it gets. What a waste.

At one time, Saul seemed to have it all. Saul had the honor of having been handpicked by God himself. Saul had immense popularity and respect as Israel's very first human king. Saul had entire armies to help him carry out God's plan. He had servants to make his life easier.

Here comes the "but."

But, Saul had a fatal flaw.

He couldn't stay faithful to God. Saul was always looking for something else. Something more exciting. Something more comforting. Something more dangerous. When God's way didn't suit him, Saul went his own way. Sadly, I can identify with Saul on this.

And because of always looking for something else, Saul paid the price. Saul learned the hard way that God does not tolerate unfaithfulness. God expects friends to be faithful to each other and not gossip about each other. God especially expects his people to be faithful to him.

Where do you rate on the "faithfulness scale?"

If you heard people making fun of your best friend, would you stand up for him or her, or would you keep your mouth shut? If your friend did something that made him seriously unpopular at school, would you stick by him (or her), or would you try to separate yourself for him.

But the big question for all of us is this- how faithful are we to God? If you heard a science teacher claim that God doesn't exist, would you stand up for God in a loving (not combative) way, or would you keep your mouth shut? If identifying yourself as a Christian could make you seriously unpopular with your "school crowd" (as opposed to your safe and comfortable "Christian crowd"), would you stick with God or would you try to hide your relationship with him?

The decision is yours. Will you commit yourself to God's ways? Or will you go your own way?

Bob's Message to the MHC Youth Group on Sep. 12, 2009

We are so glad each and every one of you are here tonight...and if you don't hear anything else I talk about tonight, do me one favor and just remember the next thing I am about to tell you. That is this - that no matter what your background is, no matter what kind of family life you have, no matter how well you do or don't do in school, no matter if you are good in sports or are as clumsy as an ox, no matter if you are fat or skinny, no matter what you look like - each of you matter to me, to Billy, to Frank, and to everyone at MeetingHouse Church. Now you might be saying, "Oh sure you do Bob, I mean c'mon, you hardly know me and I really hardly know you." But the truth of the matter is this - that as followers of Jesus Christ, we want all of you to feel welcome and loved here- that youth group will be something that you not only look forward to every week, but is part of your life. A place where you feel welcome, you feel safe, and above all - above all - a place where you will feel the love of Jesus Christ. So we are super happy that you chose to be here tonight - very cool!

Every now and then someone will ask me, “Bob, if you weren’t youth leader, what would you want to do with your life? What would you do for a job?” Well even though I have a regular job in Boston, I often think that it would be pretty cool to be a professional inventor. Now I don’t even know if there’s a job for professional inventor. I don’t know how you’d get hired on as a professional inventor. But I think I’ve got some pretty good inventions.

Now as much as I love inventions, here’s one thing I wish somebody else would invent. I haven’t come up with an answer to this. I wish somebody would. I wish somebody would invent a better toothpaste tube. You know, a better way to get the toothpaste out.

Have you ever noticed how nasty the toothpaste gets? I hate the toothpaste tube. They’re very hard to control. They’ve tried things like the upright ones with the top. And they’ve tried ones that have a pump. But none of these inventions seem to work.

I have friend at work who has a fourth grade son and he has a toothpaste drawer. And seriously, it is literally a toothpaste drawer. You pull it open and there’s this toothpaste residue everywhere. Does anybody have a drawer or cabinet in their bathroom like that? He’s got toothpaste on old toothbrushes. He’s got like fifteen different toothpaste tubes. They’re all crusted over and nasty. There’s like this white film on the inside. From the outside that cabinet drawer looks nice and pretty. You pull it open and it’s this nasty toothpaste.

I wish somebody would invent the perfect way to get the toothpaste from the tube to the toothbrush. But we’ve got this toothpaste tube that’s very hard to manage, very hard to control.

So tonight we're going to look at the toothpaste tube. We’re going to figure out can we actually learn anything that might help us in life from the toothpaste tube. And to get us started we’re going to play a quick little game to get us thinking about toothpaste tubes.

Billy, come up here. What I want, as Billy comes up, is I need a girl who even though Billy is a pretty strong guy, I need a girl who says I don’t care what it is, whatever it is, I can take him. Arm wrestling? I can take him. Whatever it is.

Here’s the game. The game is when I say Go it’s who can squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube the quickest. On your mark! Get set! Go! Cheer them on!

Time! What’s interesting is we’ve got two different styles.

Billy did the classic squeeze from the bottom. Mom always taught you, right? I’d have thought he’d have gone for the roll.

Our female contestant went for the creative twist and squeeze kind of thing.

There’s another part of the race. Part two. Part two is, on go, I want to see who can get the most back in their tube. I’m kidding.

Let me read three Bible verses to you:

James 1:19 says “My dear friends, you should be quick to listen and slow to speak or to get angry.”

Proverbs 15:1 says this “A kind answer soothes angry feelings. But harsh words stir them up.”

Matthew 5:37 says this “Just let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes.' Let your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more than this comes from the evil one.”

You might be listening to those verses and go, “Wait a second!” Those verses have a lot more to do with my mouth than a toothpaste tube. I don’t get it.”

What we’re going to do tonight is talk about this idea that our mouths are a lot like toothpaste tubes.

How many of you have ever accidentally squirted too much toothpaste onto your toothbrush? Why do we do that? Think about this for a minute. Most of you in here who even bother to brush your teeth have been handling toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes probably since like you were six years old. Yet for some reason this toothpaste tube is so hard to control. I mean it’s just so easy to let too much toothpaste come out at once. When the toothpaste is brand new, it’s so full that you barely squeeze it and it all comes out. Then, as it’s getting towards the end, you’re squeezing so hard trying to get any and then all of a sudden too much comes out.

We don’t loose control of anything else like that. It’s not like you lose control of your fork at dinnertime. … get spaghetti sauce all over your face… When you’re at school you don’t lose control of your pencil. (“Sorry teacher. I know you only asked for one paragraph but I lost control and wrote fifty-two paragraphs!”) You don’t do that. We don’t lose control of that stuff.

Why is that? Why is it that the toothpaste tube – something so basic, something so easy – we have a hard time controlling what comes out of the toothpaste tube.

Think about this for a minute. It’s kind of the same way with our mouths. We should be able to control our mouths and yet we can’t. In fact there’s a verse in the Bible that talks about that. That talks about how tough it is for us to control what comes out of our mouths. The Bible says it’s easier to control a wild animal than to control what comes out of our mouths sometimes.

Go back to the top verse where it says “Be quick to listen and slow to speak.” What that verse is saying is this: All of us could stand to probably talk a litle bit less and to listen a little bit more. Maybe that’s why God made us with two ears and one mouth- maybe God really did want us to listen through our ears twice as much as we talk through our mouths.

We don’t need to be so quick to offer our opinion. We don’t need to be so quick to make a promise that we can’t keep. We don’t need to be so quick to lash out in anger. We need to be willing to listen.

It’s sort of like we need to have big ears and a small mouth. That’s the picture God’s giving us.

I think what God’s saying is to listen a lot and speak a little. But if you are anything like me, it’s so easy to let too much come out. It’s so hard to control what we say. Just like toothpaste. Our mouths are like a toothpaste tube. It’s really hard to control. We want to make sure we don’t let too much come out at once. Because what comes out, can never be put back in. What comes out of our mouths, can never be put back in.

Like with the toothpaste contest. Did you see the response? As soon as I said to them, “Put the toothpaste back in the tube.” Both of them like What! Are you serious? It’s impossible. We can’t put toothpaste back in the tube.

In a real way you can’t put the words you say back in your mouth. Once they’re out there they’re out there.

I was at Mansfield Crossing last week, and I went over the LL Bean, you know, the outdoors sporting place. And there were all these canoes and boats in the window display. All of a sudden this family walked into the window and stopped right in front of me. It was like a mom and her mom and then two young kids. Maybe a four-year-old and a six-year-old – something like that. So it was Mom, Grandma, and the two little kids.

All of a sudden, I don’t know why - but all of a sudden Grandma, for what seemed like no real apparent reason, turns around. I couldn’t hear what she was saying because I am outside the store looking at the window full of boats, and the family is inside the store. But Grandma turns around and looks at this four-year-old kid and she goes off! She’s pointing and yelling. I couldn’t hear her but I could see her mouth. Then she goes over and grabs him by the shoulders and it’s like, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” She’s yelling and she’s pointing and this little four-year-old kid is like freaking out.

But chances are the four-year old was just being a typical four-year-old. Maybe he had asked for ice cream at Coldstone’s three times and Grandma was getting frustrated. I don’t know. But once she said that, you can’t take back the words you say. That’s why God says be slow to speak. Be slow to speak.

Guys – please understand this - once you gossip about that classmate at school, you can’t take that back. Once you lash out in anger at your friend, or your brother or sister or Mom or Dad, you can’t take it back. Once you say yes to somebody but you shouldn’t because you’re too nice. They invite you to their birthday party. You don’t want to say no and be mean so you say yes. Then it’s like, I don’t really want to go. But it’s hard to take that back. How about swearing? Once you accidentally drop the worst cuss word at your mom or dad, you can’t take it back. The Bible says be slow to speak.

The Bible says “Let your yes be a yes. Let your no be a no.” In other words be honest. Speak truthfully. You don’t have to respond right away. You can think about it. You can say, “Let me get back to you.”

The best thing that grandma could have done when she felt herself starting to get mad over at LL Bean last week would have been to not say anything - right? It would have been better to just let the situation be, than to lash out in anger. Because once she started yelling, she couldn’t take it back.

Our mouths are like toothpaste tubes. You have to be careful not to let too much come out at one time. Because what comes out can never be put back in.

And once the bad stuff comes out, you have to clean up the mess. Once your words are out there and if they are words that you regret, you are gonna have a pretty good mess on your hands. You’ve got to apologize. You’ve got to call the person, “I know I said I’d come to your birthday party but I don’t really want to.” Most of the time you won’t be honest and you’ll have to come up with yet another way to clean up the mess. You’ll lie about that. “I can’t go to your birthday party because my mom told me I have to iron the pillowcases,” or whatever. You’ll come up with something weird. You start trying to clean up the mess and before you know it, you just created an even bigger mess.

Think about the grandma last week at LL Bean - screaming and yelling like a madwoman! Think about that for a second. I hope and I would imagine that grandma felt bad about that at some point. Maybe just a few minutes later she thought, “Why did I yell at little junior? All he wanted was an ice cream from Coldstone. What four year old kid doesn’t want ice cream?” Can she take back what she said? No. All she can do is try to clean up the mess, right?

Here’s the thing. Our mouths take work. What you have to decide tonight is where do you want to work. Here’s what I mean by that. Do you want to work on the front end by thinking, “How do I control my mouth? Should I think before I speak? Should I not over react? Should I not gossip?” That takes work, right? That takes work.

Or do you want to work on the back end? You are quick to speak. You don’t think about how what you say will make the other person feel. Now, you are at it again - cleaning up the mess. And saying you’re sorry. And apologizing. “I didn’t really mean it (even though I called you a big stupid idiot, I didn’t mean it.)”

Where are you going to work? You’re going to have to work one way or the other.

I would suggest to you that it’s easier – not always because it’s just not the way we do things – but it’s better to work on the front end and be slow to speak. Let our yes be a true yes. Let our no be a true no. Use a gentle word instead of a harsh word.

If you’re a Christian, if you’re a Christ follower, if you’re a young man/a young woman who says I want to live like Jesus want me to live, here’s the deal. Jesus wants us to clean up our mess when we make a mess. When our mouths gets us in trouble, He wants us to be willing to clean it up.

But here’s the secret - God would rather us think on the front end. And listen before we speak. And think about the words we’re using. Because God knows our mouths are like a toothpaste tube. We’ve got to be careful not to let too much out at once. Because once something goes out there, it can’t be put back in. And we’re going to have a mess to clean up. God realizes that. So He wants to protect us from ourselves when it comes to our mouths.

What’s interesting to me about the toothpaste tube is this: I’m not sure how long the toothpaste tube has been around. Let’s pretend they’ve been around a hundred years. Think about all the inventions we’ve had in the last hundred years. The automobile, the telephone, the credit card, the computer, the toaster oven. Playstation. Xbox. Cell Phones. All these crazy inventions. Guess what? The toothpaste tube hasn’t changed one bit in over 100 years. Something tells me that this for some reason is still the best way to get toothpaste on your toothbrush. They’ve tried everything but they’re not improving this very much. This is kind of what we’re stuck with. So because this is what we’re stuck with we need to learn to control it.

The same goes for our mouths. Our mouths were the invention that God came up with to help us communicate. And I doubt He’s gonna change that anytime soon.

God’s not reinventing us. Your kids aren’t going to be born with some really cool mouth filter system that only allows them to say the right thing at the right time. This is what we’ve got. This is what we have. So we need to learn to control what comes out. And to recognize that when something comes out it can’t go back in. And to recognize that we’re going to have to clean up the mess that our mouths make.

Here’s the thought for the week. Does my mouth make a mess?

Prayer:

God, thanks so much for us being together here tonight. Thanks for every guy and girl that came tonight. God, would You help us this week every time we find ourselves losing control I pray that You’d help us have a picture of the toothpaste tube. God, help us to control what comes out because it can’t be put back in and it can make a real mess. God, thank You for loving us and thank You for this great, great weekend You’ve given us. In Your name we pray. Amen.

True Forgiveness

But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right. He will cleanse us from all the wrongs we have done.
1 John 1:9

God demands one thing from us when we sin.

Genuine repentance.

He wants us to recognize what we've done…how we've hurt our relationship with him and with anyone else who was affected by our sin. God wants us to feel genuine sorrow (not guilt!), and he wants us to come to him in prayer to make things right.

If we do that, we are forgiven.

But God doesn't just forgive us. He also purifies us.

Before you roll your eyes and say "there you go again with some blah blah blah," here me out on this…

He also purifies us…all that means is that God washes away the sins we confess. He scrubs our hearts clean. And he forgets the sin forever. F-O-R-E-V-E-R. That's his incredible promise to us.

Now here's a tip – If God forgets about a sin, you should forget about it too! Don't keep beating yourself up over something you have been forgiven for. Do what you need to do in order to make things right. Apologize to anyone who might have been hurt as a result of your actions. Ask people for forgiveness. Fix the situation the best you can. And when you're all done, put the whole messy incident behind you – for good – and move on with your life.

Keep one thing in mind though – "moving on" also means not allowing other people to keep you down because of something you have done in the past. What I am trying to say is that if someone refuses to forgive and forget and you've sincerely tried to make things right, that is now THEIR problem. That person who refuses to forgive will have to answer to God for their hardened heart. Moving on also means rejecting unfair reputations that people try to give you. Don't allow yourself to be defined by a past mistake!

Remember, if it comes down to a choice of believing what people say about you versus believing what God's Word says about you, always go with God's Word.

Who can you forgive today? Each one of us has something that has happened to us recently that really hurts inside. All of us. Who can you forgive today, as God has forgiven you?