Indiana Youth Retreat, Grace: pt 1

As many of you know, I spent last weekend down in Indiana speaking at a youth retreat for my best friend Aaron. He is the youth pastor and associate pastor at the church and planned a retreat for his high-schoolers. All total we had about 15 people that made the trek even further south in Indiana. The youth were great, they were awesome kids. I taught a total of four messages from Friday night through Sunday morning as well as did music for the weekend. I realized that it had been a long time since I had played my guitar at camp and my uncalloused fingers reminded me of it. I am still trying to recoup from the preaching and late nights with lots of caffeine and conversation, as well as zip lines, paint-ball, Frisbee, music, driving, etc. I don't think I'm as young as I used to be. Though I keep acting like I am. And will probably continue to do so for quite some time.

I wanted to take the next few posts to share what I was hoping to get across to the kids that were there, and also to rehash it for myself and your benefit. So, enjoy.

The first night that I taught I tried to help them understand what grace was, easy task right? My hope was to help them see Christ on the cross first of all as God’s gracious work on our/their behalf. So here’s what I did.

“Grace: Looking Good, Being Bad, And Have Someone Else Do It”

We spend a lot of time trying and attempting to keep up appearances. We do all we can to make things look right. To make ourselves look good. Think of some things with me, How much money do you spend on clothing, time you spend working out, in front of the mirror. How much time do you spend talking about yourself, defending yourself? How well do you sleep when you are wondering what certain people think of you? Do you completely change personalities and masks whenever you are around a different set of people? Do you almost have to write down who you are in which situations so you can remember what to do and who you are around certain people. Around Mom and Dad I will be responsible, but not too friendly. Around friends, irresponsible and reckless so they won’t know that my parents wouldn’t actually let me do this, Around my Grandma I’ll let her grab my cheek and tell me how cute I am even though I hate it just so I can get a big check in the mail when she sends the birthday card, Around my teachers I look smart, or play dumb so I don’t have to work hard. Around my youth pastor I say the right words so he doesn’t ask me about Saturday night, around people at church I am the model Christian. Doesn’t it get tiring. This isn’t just a highschool thing, some people live their entire lives like this.

Maybe its approval, do you have to be the center of attention? Do you try to keep to the background so that people don’t see you? How hard do you work to gain the approval of your boss, your teachers, your parents, your friends? Does it crush you when you don’t get the approval that you want? When you don’t measure up to their expectations? When you don’t know what others expect from you?

Maybe you listen to all of this and think to yourself, you know, I don’t really care what others think of me, they can think what they want. The only standard that I have to live up to is my own. I’ll do what I want and no one can tell me otherwise, I’m completely free of what they want from me. I’ll decide who I am and stick with that. No one else can tell me who I should be. You might think this is better, and even more honorable. If that is the case, you may not be any further out of the weeds than those who seek approval at every moment.

So… How well do you keep up appearances? Do you measure up to your own standard? To others’ standards? I think if we are all honest, we don’t juggle all our personalities, masks and standards very well, or at least as well as we would like. There are people that we don’t talk to, people we do talk to, all based upon what kind of people we want to see ourselves as, or how we want to see ourselves. And yet we can still come away sometimes having no idea which mask is the real one. Or we realize which one is the closest to who we really are and we don’t like which one we come away with. Its like taking a personality test and getting the results back that says we are the biggest jerk in the world.

But before you get too depressed. I HAVE GOOD NEWS, look at Romans 3:10—20.

as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.”

You may think that I need to work on my encouragement skills. You might be right. I thought you said this was supposed to be encouraging news, good news. Well, the truth is, it is good news. How in the world can it be good, beneficial, joyful news that no one is righteous and all ought to stand condemned under the firey, white-hot character and judgment of God? Further you have offended and stand condemned before God because of your sins. You have broken God’s law. But its even better (or worse) than that, Ephesians says you are dead in your trespasses and sins. D E D dead, so dead you can’t even spell dead right, and you ain’t getting any deader. Dead people don’t do anything good. They just rot. And you don’t even rot very well. You are a dead sinner under the condemnation of a perfect, just and holy God. So be encouraged. Why?

It is incredibly gracious of God to even reveal this to you and to us. It is incredibly gracious of God to go to the extent that he does to make it unmistakably clear that we don’t measure up to His standard. He could have just left us with the impression that we were just fine and had nothing wrong in our relationship with Him and been completely justified in letting us go on our merry little way, all the way to an eternity in hell. But God does not do that. God does not relate to us in that deceptive way. God does not relate to us like someone who is trying to get on your good side so you will like them, just to cover up the fact that they really are trying to get something out of you. He is not a cheesy or sly or deceptive car salesman or someone who talks you up with all kinds of things that aren’t true just to take advantage of you. God is honest, and graciously reveals his standard and the painfully evident fact that we don’t measure up.

Or think of it this way. The child at home does not realize his need for cereal until he walks down the cereal aisle or until he sees a commercial for sugary goodnes in between Saturday morning cartoons. In the same way we don’t see our need for redemption until we fully see our sin. Not too make this petty, but until God takes us by the hand and leads us down the aisle of our sin so that we really see the way things are. Only unlike the child in grocery store, we won’t be running to the shelves to grab things to throw in the cart.

Or you might think that there are enough good things on the shelves in the store of your life that Jesus would be completely content to shop there. After all its not a liquor store or a pawn shop. I’m not that bad. But remember Romans 3. And remember even more that god showing you your sin is the most gracious thing that He can do for you before you know Christ. You don’t want it to be up to you. Trust me, you’re not that good, I’m not that good. You already lost the second you thought you could live up to anyone’s expectations including God’s apart from God.

So then, God is gracious

This is a horrible place for me to end this, or maybe it is a good place. It isn’t where I left the retreat kids, so rest assured there, but realize (as I need to more) God is very gracious to reveal to us our sin. And He is gracious to reveal to us our inability to get to Him, or measure up on our own, or to keep up appearances. This is more than enough for me to chew on or make you chew on for right now, and I don’t intend to leave you high and dry without the Remedy, but my bed is calling my name, and I need be awake to drive the church van tomorrow.

More to come soon.

In Christ,

My Only Hope

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