After the actual Wednesday service was over and the adults left, Eddie Exposito came to speak to the youth.
Now, this has a very interesting story. I was getting pretty exhausted by the time of the Wednesday night service. And then between the end of the church service and the youth meeting, I somehow woke up. Don't ask me how, but it happened. When Pastor Eddie came to speak, I found myself incredibly awake and verging on hyperness. Of course being in a church service, there are not many way to express that energy in an acceptable way. Then Pastor Eddie began speaking. He is a very charismatic (not in theology, just in his style of speaking) speaker, he has a great gift for relating to young people, and generally being a very entertaining person. So...his hilarity and my hyperness resulted in quite the evening. It was amazing. His message was fantastic. I was pretty much laughing the entire way through, which was okay because that's the way he meant it to be. Apparently it was quite the phenomenon, for two good friends who were sitting with me, reported that they had rarely heard me laugh with such intensity. It does happen, just not usually when people are around, haha. I eventually crashed, several hours later, but for a good amount of time I was, as the saying goes, bouncing off the walls, which was pretty fun actually!
On a serious note...I made some notes on the message from Pastor Eddie and I want to share these things with you. He was making some general observations about the Christian life, lessons that we all need to be reminded about on a constant basis. So there is not necessarily a strict unity between these points other than being important ideas to remember.
- It is easy to act like we are the entire team, instead of a team player. Pastor Eddie used the example of a football team, but since I can't really relate to that, I thought of an orchestra. It would be the height of arrogance to think that as a violinist we are the entire orchestra and can play a Beethoven Symphony on our own. Rather, we are dependent on other people, for we each have talents, and if we can allow others to use their gifts rather than insisting that we do everything, we will make far more progress in whatever we're doing. This applies to church life, family life, work, situations like Lakeshore, and pretty much everything in life. It takes humility to admit we don't know everything. It takes humility to ask others for help. But this is what the Christian life is about. He made a good point about humility...it is the one virtue that once you realize you have it, you have lost it. When you said, "oh wow, look at how humble I am!" you have suddenly become filled with pride.
- We have all probably had experience with young children who throw tantrums when they can't get what they want. When the child has exhausted their temper, the parent calmly asks, "are you ready to obey now?" That's a lot like our life. God is in control. He is sovereign. No amount of tantrums can change it. We are only being foolish when we fight against God's will for our life, because in the end we will be exhausted and God will say, "ok, ready to listen now?"
- The Christian life is about the long haul. The day-by-day plodding. Not the exciting mountaintop experiences. Not the glamorous and ostentatious roles we can play.The ordinary job of living for God. This is what truly matters.
- If we find our joy in Christ, nothing that happens to us can take away our happiness and fulfillment in life. I'm afraid we are too often people-pleasers. We are so focused on satisfying the people around us, we forget that our true happiness comes from living for God, whether this pleases people or not. But it can give us such confidence to pursue God's will because we don't have to be in bondage to the opinions of other people! To live for God, not men, is an incredibly liberating truth.
- Christians need to be defined by being gracious. There are a couple reasons for this. 1) God is sovereign. So stop stressing out! What God ordains is what will happen and it is good. So why worry about our lives? I know that I can easily become a worrier, I can become stressed out over a myriad of things, from the trivial to the significant. But God is sovereign! When people disappoint us, or when things don't go according to plan, we should be gracious, not being angry at others for their role in the situation, but rather accepting God's will. So let go of the frustration and live in the joy of the Lord. 2) God is merciful. What is the Christian life about but the grace of God? We've talked about that a lot this week. Every other world religion is based on law and works. Christianity is based on law and grace. Giving people what they don't deserve. We ought to give the same kind of grace to those around us. Just think, Christ took the ultimate punishment for the sins of all the elect, how can we not show grace to those who may annoy us. Just let go. Every moment of our lives is a chance to repent, to reconcile, to forgive, so let us be free from bitterness, resentfulness, and anger. Christianity is about unconditional love. Did God love us because we met His conditions of worthiness? Hardly. We need to be full of unconditional love for every person in our lives. And since we can't do this on our own, for we are depraved and sinful, this brings us right back to the cross and the constant need of Christ's grace and strength in our lives.
- Pastor Eddie talked about something which was called "putting the best construction on things" when I was growing up. In other words, if someone slams a door or even shuts it more forcefully than we think is appropriate, we will immediately conclude that the person has lost their temper. And then we'll want to tell on them, lecture them, or just keep the smug knowledge that they are quick to anger and we are not to ourselves. The person could have experienced 500 aggravations in the day, and the last trial was just too much. Yes, it is wrong to be angry, but can't we give others the grace we would ask them to give us? We don't want people to expect us to be perfect, so why don't we do the same for others? Or maybe they just heard some really bad news about a loved one and they are struggling with the emotional trial of that. Should we be ready to jump on them for being so un-Christian as to slam the door? I feel that much of what Pastor Eddie said on this topic could be summed up in the word, empathy. Instead of judging others, we can try to understand why they are behaving in a certain way, or recognize that their actions are a result of some difficulty and imagine what it would be like to experience that ourselves.
- Another thing he mentioned was a result of Christian fundamentalism. It is the assumption that people who deviate from our superficial criterion of behavior or life are more "evil" than those who appear to be decent people. In other words, we would probably say that a drunk with tattoos and piercings was more needy of the Gospel than a soccer mom with her mini-van, perfect manicure, accomplished kids, and respectable life. Really? Why is that? Because a soccer mom fits into our criterion better than a bum? But what about their hearts? Who are we to say that one needs Christ more than the other? Does the Bible make this distinction? I can't recall any verses like that. On the contrary, the Bible consistently maintains that we are all fallen, we are all depraved, we are all in the same desperate situation without Christ.
- Pastor Eddie talked about something which was called "putting the best construction on things" when I was growing up. In other words, if someone slams a door or even shuts it more forcefully than we think is appropriate, we will immediately conclude that the person has lost their temper. And then we'll want to tell on them, lecture them, or just keep the smug knowledge that they are quick to anger and we are not to ourselves. The person could have experienced 500 aggravations in the day, and the last trial was just too much. Yes, it is wrong to be angry, but can't we give others the grace we would ask them to give us? We don't want people to expect us to be perfect, so why don't we do the same for others? Or maybe they just heard some really bad news about a loved one and they are struggling with the emotional trial of that. Should we be ready to jump on them for being so un-Christian as to slam the door? I feel that much of what Pastor Eddie said on this topic could be summed up in the word, empathy. Instead of judging others, we can try to understand why they are behaving in a certain way, or recognize that their actions are a result of some difficulty and imagine what it would be like to experience that ourselves.
- Another thing he mentioned was a result of Christian fundamentalism. It is the assumption that people who deviate from our superficial criterion of behavior or life are more "evil" than those who appear to be decent people. In other words, we would probably say that a drunk with tattoos and piercings was more needy of the Gospel than a soccer mom with her mini-van, perfect manicure, accomplished kids, and respectable life. Really? Why is that? Because a soccer mom fits into our criterion better than a bum? But what about their hearts? Who are we to say that one needs Christ more than the other? Does the Bible make this distinction? I can't recall any verses like that. On the contrary, the Bible consistently maintains that we are all fallen, we are all depraved, we are all in the same desperate situation without Christ.
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