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You guessed it. At work on Saturday. Story of my life. It’s like this:

Me: So you work on your own a lot?

The other me: Yep, sure do. Make my own hours.

Me: Yeah, I work too much.

The other me: But you’rel ike your own boss and everything… so who’s fault

is it that you have to work today?

Me: Shut up.

That’s the dialogue in my brain lately. But in all seriousness, life is

great. I couldn’t be happier with how everything is going. I will readily admit

that it will be great relief when VBS is over and the students go back to

school… but until then I am just trying to enjoy the constant distration.

[note: this is my talk for Sunday am church this week. While this is the original script, this is no where near what the final version will be. Please look at this as a draft for writing purposes.]

A bad case of Me-itis

“Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.” (James 4:1-2, The Message)

James takes out his hammer and hits it right on the head, doesn’t he?

There is a notion in our brains that everything we do is really about us. Since we were infants we’ve learned to identify everything we see and hear to ourselves and how that relates to our agenda. “What do I want?” “What’s in it for me” “How can you help me?” Think about it. We live in a very selfish, me first society that gives you full liberty and even encouragement to do whatever you think is right. It’s everywhere to the music we hum along with in the car to the commercials we watch on television. “Don’t you want to look like this?” “Don’t you deserve this kind of car?” “Are you ready for the washing machine that gives you more time?” It’s so prevalent, even in the church, that we don’t recognize it for what it is… selfishness. But James, under the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit says to us… believers in Jesus Christ, “You think it’s all about you? Think again.”

I’d like for you to take a moment to envision a conflict that you’ve been in recently. (Close eyes and relive it)

Think back to yourself. Was this a conflict that was about something really important or was it a case like James was talking about? Did you just want to be right? Sadly all of us, at one point or another have suffered from a bad case of Me-itis. Me-itis is a disease that chokes you spiritually. It is a sin that causes us to forget that we are not God. We give ourselves to Me-itis because we want to call the shots. We want to be important. We want to see our value and we want to be right. The disease convinces us that the earth’s access and rotation completely depends on what we want. It is a disease that eats you alive from the inside out. It will suck away pleasure and joy in your walk with the Lord and leave you lying on the side of the road… near death.

Of course, it won’t be too long before a person who wears the slogan “It’s all about me” on their sleeve bumps into another person who feels the same way. These are the conflicts James writes about. It’s quarrels and wars.

A look at conflicts

I will tell you straight up that I am not the best person to talk about selfishness and conflicts. As my mom reminds me all the time, there was a time when I was affectionately referred to as “Adamant Adam.” Now that I think of it, maybe I’m the perfect person to talk about this since I will readily admit that I have a lot to learn. So, just to illustrate a case of Me-itis in the every day world… let’s use conflict or arguing as an example.

The problem: A conflict arises! Both parties fight to win. (Christians argue so politely don’t they?)

The result: Relationships are damaged. Feelings are hurt.

Fake solution for temporary resolution: Blame on circumstance or others. It’s not my fault! It’s got to be….

Real solution for permanent resolution: Put the interest of others ahead of your own.

Overcoming selfishness

For those of you that are here and aren’t too sure that what I am saying is true or possible I have some reassuring news for you. There is a way that you can overcome selfishness. I guarantee it.

My proposition to you today is this: You can overcome selfishness by putting others first.

Let’s take a look at Philippians 2. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Philippi about 30 years after Jesus’ resurrection. This is one of the few times that Paul wrote a letter, not really to correct a problem, and really not even to respond to specific questions that the church had… instead Paul essentially wrote the letter as a thank you gift for a generous gift. Paul had 3 main purposes for the letter:

To thank them for their gift

To instruct them to unity

To encourage joyfulness in the Christian life

So in turning to Philippians 2:3 we see Paul begin to instruct the church family on how to live together is way pleasing to God. Read along with me as I read:

“3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:”

Principles for living an others first lifestyle

These verses challenge us with 4 overlapping commands. A careful look at each of them reveals both the root cause of the “ME FIRST” orientation as well as some help for overcoming them.

Don’t allow ambition or conceit to drive your decision.

What is vain conceit?

i. It’s the false belief that you are so special and so unique that you deserve special treatment.

What is selfish ambition?

i. It’s simply going for something that’s only going to benefit you. Putting the needs and desires of everyone else in jeopardy so that you can get what you want.

Paul says, don’t let those things drive your decisions. A couple of years ago I was sitting in a board room with a bunch of other mid-level supervisors listening to the company trainer give us the company lines about how we should implement this new program of cutting back on overtime. After about 2 hours of mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations the trainer put up a slide that said “WIFM?” I think of the 30-40 people in the room I was the only person who was paying attention and trying to take notes. Then the trainer said “So, I’ve just explained to you why we need to do this as a company. Now let me introduce you to a new motivational tool we’re trying. It’s called What’s In It For Me? That’s right, we know that none of you want to go back to your departments and start implementing this new policy. We know your employees are going to complain because you are hitting them with a reduction in overtime. So we’ve decided to give you a little incentive. For every 10% of overtime you cut from your group, we’ll give you a 2% raise.” Let me tell you, every eye was on this trainer and everyone was taking notes. Why? Because this woman had tapped into everyone’s selfish ambition!

Treat others as more important than yourself.

Imagine that you’ve just gotten word that your favorite musician or the president or a famous actor or some sports hero were coming to your house for dinner. Paul is saying that we should treat everyone the way we would treat that kind of a special guest.

Note that the passage didn’t say “they are more important than yourself’ instead it says treat others as if they were better than you.

Parents, I want you to understand that this passage is not superceding other passages about your role as a parent. The children that God has given you are supposed to be subservient to you. I see so many families that are ruining this principle because they are treating their kids as little gods. They are literally worshipping at the altar of their kids. You are not doing them any favors by allowing them to dictate your lives with their self-interests. Be careful to not model selfishness by placating their every want and desire.

Look out for the interest of others

Simply put, don’t be consumed by your own self-interests

Take an interest in the things that interest others.

i. Example of Jessica Potes hunting with Jon

Follow Christ’s example of humility

Paul reminds us that Jesus gave up so much in order to make himself nothing… for us!

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that a person has to be worthy enough for you to put them before you.

i. If you saw how that person treated me…

ii. My dad never had time for me as a kid, why should I…

iii. Nobody seems to care about my feelings, why should I care for theirs?

iv. They don’t respect me, so why should I do…

Paul anticipated this instinct in each of us and supports his teaching by pointing to the supreme example of selflessness.

Paul challenges us to be like Christ

i. How did Jesus treat others?

– He constantly treated others as more important than himself

– He consistently served people

– He never allowed rejection or hatred to dilute His love for them

– Think about it, the Creator subjected Himself to His own creation.

It’s Has to Be Supernatural

We looked at these commands and if you are like me you are saying… “Great Paul, I like it… but how do I actually do it?”

So let me take some time now to help you take these timeless principles from God’s word and put them directly into your lives.

First of all, you have to know and acknowledge that you are powerless. What do I mean by that? We are, by very nature as humans, selfish and conceited. How do I know that? If I were to create a machine that could create a recording of the “self talk” that goes on inside each of us… we would all be completely humiliated. On the outside we may look perfectly normal, friendly, outgoing, well meaning, yet on the inside we have a natural tendency to sit there and think only of ourselves. We have to admit to ourselves that we are completely self-absorbed.

Have you ever read a blog? If you’ve ever had a doubt that everyone is as self-consumed and selfish as you are… spend an hour reading people’s journals at a blog website. If you do it, get prepared to be depressed and see tons of stories from only one side on an argument!

So, if we’re going to overcome selfishness, we need to ask God for help!

Next, remember that we are selfish by training, repetition, practice and years of positive reinforcement. Again, to overcome this we are going to have to ask for Supernatural power.

We are going to have to ask the Lord for a servant’s attitude and constantly pointing ourselves back to Jesus as our example. Let his priorities become your priorities.

So let me leave you with some challenges for beginning an others first lifestyle.

– Is your schedule more important than serving others?

– Is your position among co-workers/peers more valuable than serving others?

– Is your pride/ego keeping you from stooping to serve?

The Bible says that Jesus “made himself nothing” are you willing to make yourself nothing?

– By nothing, we don’t mean worthless

– To the contrary- your worth stops being about you and your gain and starts being “my life’s worth is in others.”

– Living your life as a servant to others means that you become something in God’s eyes by humbly considering the needs of others. As a famous youth speaker likes to say, “God’s name is I AM and you’re name is I AM NOT.”

Light Force Plug

In our youth group we’ve set off down the path of loving God and loving others. These are our priorities.

The difference between those being our priorities and these being priorities that drive us is that we are taking the time to say “How can we love God? How can we love people?”

The answer to those questions is terribly tough, isn’t it. You see, in order to love others we must serve them. How can we treat them as guests in a way to make them feel welcomed and loved? How can we love God in a way that is outside of ourselves and not about us? You see, the same truth that is true for you if you are in 7-12 grade is true for you no matter what age you are. God clearly instructs his people that our value in His eyes comes from the value we put into others.

Closing ceremony

As we prepare to close… I’d like each of you to take a few moments… in the quietness of the moment… I’d like for you to write down a specific person you feel led to apply these principles with. Maybe as I’ve been speaking the Spirit’s been leading you to think of this one person over and over again. I’d like you to write that name down now… no one else will know who it is. It’ll be between you and God. Maybe it’s an attitude you need to change about something. Write it down like this:

“Dear God, I want to obey your word and imitate Jesus by putting others first. Help me to serve _____ by ______. Amen”

In the next few minutes… as you finish with that… if you are serious about this commitment, please come forward and put it here on the altar. No one will ever know. What you put there as a promise stays between you and the Lord.

Deacons come forward. They will be here to pray for your needs…

On the youth specialties board lately there has been a great thread about puking. There is just something about working with students that eventually involves puke. Whether it’s illness, dares or the infamous “one gallon challenge,” where two or more are with you… there is sure to be vomit.

http://youthspecialties.com/forums/message_boards/index.php?act=ST&f=33&t=6959&s=70838eec5924205487484c54764135f9

In other vomit news. Kerry accepts the democratic presidential nomination tonight. I hope and pray the American people watch the convention so that they know how terribly liberal Kerry/Edwards really is. I personally don’t care if they elect him or not… but the people have a right to know that these guys make Clinton look moderate. Kerry’s wife is 10 times more liberal than Hillary.

In more puking news. I am sick and tired of hearing any of the candidates say they can identify with the common American. They are all millionaires… you don’t know what it’s like to be us since you have never been poor. So just stop it. Even more puking news. The federal government is giving each candidate $75 million to blow on the elections. For the 100 million people who actually vote, the government should just give us $1.50 to show up at the polls and spare the advertising. Think about it.

This week I asked my students who had been on vacation so far this summer. All but two hands went up. Perhaps it would have been wiser to ask who had not been on vacation. It is summertime and what better time for families to escape the pressures and complexities of life to somewhere else. Or as my wife and I discussed when looking for this years vacation, anywhere else.

After that quick and unofficial poll, I started to think about God’s benevolence. “Even though we need time away from our jobs and our lives, God never needs a vacation. God is good and kind and giving and protecting us all the time. We never have to worry about Him going on vacation from His job. He never tires of looking after His people. He never needs time away to recharge. He never has to put on His itinerary “nothing” so that He doesn’t go nuts on his co-workers. He doesn’t have to remove all His other distractions from life to spend time with His children.

God cares for us in good times and bad. Psalm 23:4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” God cares for us when we are vacation and when we are at work. Psalm 18:4, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

It’s been a week since I last blogged. Longer if you count actual notes instead of notes from things that I am writing and doing on a daily basis.

This week I am overwhelmed with things to do. There are times for everything, I know that Solomon wrote that… but right now it seems like a time for the world to stop spinning so that I can catch up. Have you ever had moments in your life when the world seems like it is slipping past you at a million miles and hour and all you can do is try to catch it… yet it is steadily slipping away from you? That’s how I feel this July.

On the one hand. Life is grand. Ministry is going very well. The last two events have gone better than expected while other church related activities have also been hitting on all cylinders. Life is good.

Or is it? Not to seem self absorbed, but the cost of all of this is that Kristen and I are seeing less and less of each other. The other day someone asked me when Kristen and I were going to have another baby. Another baby, I thought. Heck, I can’t even get some time to watch the two we have grow up! Not to mention, “when on earth would we even make another baby? Seriously, I’m always going somewhere or doing something or spending time with someone. I miss Kristen. We go out, we spend time together. But it’s not like it was in the old days. There is a photo that hangs in my office of Kristen and I as a new couple back in July 1995. We were so young and dumb. That picture was taken the day after I first kissed Kristen. We were on top of the world back then. We had nothing better to do and we spent the day driving around and then walking around Notre Dame’s campus. It was the perfect day. I was showing her something that I was so proud of… where I grew up. We would put down her camera and let the timer go off and then rush over and it would snap. That was by far the coolest picture of the day.

Sometimes I wish there were still days like that. Life is so much more complicated now. Of course, I could whine about money and bills, instead time is the quality I most miss. Kids [whom I love as much as anything in the world] take up all of Kristen’s energy and time. Work [which I love and couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do with my life] takes up all of my time and energy.

Perhaps the challenge for Kristen and I for the next section of our life could be called “overcoming busyness.” This reminds me of an article I once wrote called “the sin of busyness.” Hmmm.

“Light Force desires to love God and love others by intentionally modeling a lifestyle devoted to becoming disciples of Jesus.”

 

Tonight I want to take a closer look at the part of our mission statement that says “intentionally modeling.”  It’s a loaded phrase, and a phrase that we can all learn to ignore… or we can all learn to do it and watch God use it in powerful and mighty ways.

 

Let’s start off by taking a look at the life of Jesus. Last week we looked at Jesus’ mission in life and part of that was modeling to his disciples… so let’s take a closer look at how Jesus did that for a few minutes. 

Mark 1:35-38 



What was Jesus doing? Praying alone

What were the disciples doing? Looking for him, they found him in prayer

Luke 4: 42-44



What was Jesus doing? Praying alone

What were the disciples doing? Looking for him, found him. (See a pattern?)

Luke 8:1

What was Jesus doing? Traveling from town to town, proclaiming the good news

What were the disciples doing? They were with him.

Luke 9: 1-2



What was Jesus doing? Sending the disciples out to drive out demons and cure diseases

What were the disciples doing? The disciples were sent out by themselves

Mark 10:14-15

What was Jesus doing? Both welcoming little children to his side and showing the disciples that this is what they were supposed to be doing

What were the disciples doing? With Jesus, but needing to be taught.

John 17:6-7; 18

What was Jesus doing? Praying for the disciples.

What were the disciples doing? John was there with him

John 20:19-22

What was Jesus doing? Appears to the disciples, gives them the Holy Spirit to continue ministry

What were the disciples doing? They were together and were still looking to be taught.

 

OK… so now we’ve had a chance to look at this, now let’s try to digest what it means for us. Let’s make some observations from Jesus’ life about modeling.

 

–         Did Jesus have accidental relationships?

–         Did the people in Jesus’ life always understand what Jesus was doing in their lives?

–         How did Jesus teach someone how to do a skill? 

The test environment:

Often times in the land of computer repair and software development, you have to create a place where you can control all the variables so that you can test something before you give it to a customer. Some places call this a test environment and other people call it a lab.

 

When I worked in the business world, Ricky the programmer that was assigned to me, ran two sets of computers. He had his “real world” computers that were doing the daily business of my department. The program he maintained handled millions of tasks a day. It created all the workload for my entire department. If that one computer went down, literally dozens of people would be sent home and hundreds of thousands of dollars would be lost. In some ways, the very reputation of this massive computer depended on that one computer doing its job every day.

 

Now Ricky wasn’t just in charge of maintaining this one program and this one computer. He was also in charge of implementing changes to the program that would make the program run faster or make the work get to the workers in such a way that they could do their jobs more efficiently. So I would sit down with Ricky and tell him which projects we needed as priorities and which ones were pet projects and which ones were not important at all.

 

Now, if you know anything at all about computer programming… you’d know that most of getting a complex thing to work comes down to trial and error. Ricky would sit down, do an immense algorithm, scratch his head for a few days and then begin writing the program to make a change work. Then he would take his modification and put it onto an entirely different computer… “a test computer” that wasn’t hooked up to the network. If his new program didn’t work, it didn’t really matter since the work that the test computer created wasn’t our real work… it was just pretend work. He was free to experiment and be creative and try new things because it was like practice work. If it failed, his boss would just shrug his shoulders because there was no harm done.

 

But eventually, after a lot of trial and error and a whole lot of testing, Ricky would get a modification ready to go. Only after he had carefully tested his program did he ever put it into the live environment to be used by my department. Obviously, there was more pressure to perform… but Ricky would always have a certain level of confidence because he knew it worked. 

This is kind of what Jesus was doing with his disciples while he was on the earth. Jesus kept his disciples in a test environment. They were close to their master. They could copy what he did and learn from him. And Jesus was modeling to them what they’d have to do in the real world after he was gone. 

Back in our world:

This is the kind of thing that we are creating with Light Force. We want to help you see this time in your life as a time to test things out.

Most of you here know for certain that you have a relationship with Jesus. So the aim for you in the youth group is to learn some skills that you will need when you are out on your own in the real world. You need a safe place where someone can come along side you and show you how to

 

–         Share Jesus with a friend

–         Study the Word for yourself so you can learn and grow on your own

–         Build relationships with friends that will last a lifetime

–         Learn how to really encourage someone

–         Learn how to pray consistently

 

This is your test environment. Feel free to experiment, make mistakes, ask questions, try new things, and get pushed into new things. Our leaders here are here to model that to you. And here’s the new twist… we leaders are learning ourselves how we can do that intentionally rather than accidentally. Feel free to ask us “Mrs. Dashe, why did you do that?” It’s OK… we want to be intentional that our role here as adults isn’t to baby-sit you, it’s to help you grow up in the Lord.

 

An example: Why are we offering an incentive for you to bring a friend on the Michigan’s Adventure trip? (Came from EQUIP, remember CPR?)

 

But there are some of you here tonight that have been doing this… that are frankly ready to do something else. To take the next step up.

–         You are ready to be the person on the other side of it that is ready to intentionally model to others a lifestyle of chasing after Jesus.

–         You’re already studying God’s Word on your own.

–         You’re already praying regularly.

–         You’ve already learned how to share Christ with your friends and have done it a few times.

–         You are ready to get equipped to minister to your friends in a big way.

 

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I hear adults say things like “Light force is so important for our church because they are the church of tomorrow.” I usually smile and nod, but inside I’m thinking, “have you lost your mind… can’t you see that they are the church of today!

 

If there’s one thing that sticks with you tonight, I want it to be this penetrating thought.

 

Why are you here? Why do you live in this area? Why do you go to your school? Why are you friends with the people you are friends with? Why do you like the things you like?

 

Have you ever wondered that? Sure, you’ve made individual choices. You have your own likes and dislikes, etc. But you are who you are for a reason. If you know Christ and you have friends who don’t know Christ… it’s no accident that you are in their lives!

All I can say about my life right now is that I wish it would all just slow down. There is far too much going on too quickly. So much for a nice reflective summer.

We have much going on in the youth groups, trips, baseball games, softball, volleyball, disc golf… will it ever stop.

To make matters worse, I’ve gotten my reading lists for grad school. There is some serious gut checking going on as I’ve got to truly figure out if this is what I want to do for the next few years of my life. I keep saying to myself, it will be worth it in the end. Expensive, but hopefully worth it.

In my golf world. Life is nice. I’m hitting the ball fine, thinking less and scoring better. I was quite frustrated to day as I had 7 birdie putts and only made 1 for a very respectable 37.

The 2nd part of our mission statement for Light Force is love God and love others. A few weeks ago we kicked off our summer series by looking at “What’s in a name?”

This week: We look at the second part of our mission statement and see the phrase, “love God, love others.”

Really… in the long run we’ll be diving into the major questions of why love God, how to love God… all that stuff much later, but at this level, we need to really comprehend

What does “love God, love others” mean? Where does it come from?

Let’s start off by looking at the “big picture”

If I were to ask you “what was Jesus’ mission in life?

What would you say?

[Some good answers]

John 6:38-40 – do the will of the Father, be the Savior of the world

John 17: 4- Completing His Father’s work, bring His Father glory

Acts 1:8- Train up witnesses

In Jesus’ everyday life, what did knowing what his mission was do for him?

– He knew what he had to do

– He knew what the goal was for his life

– He did what had to be done to with the mission in mind.

So this was Jesus’ mission— and he is our example, right?

So, what mission does he give to us?

Well, we can get some clue as to what our mission is in the life and words of Jesus. We don’t have to wonder, he told us what our mission was!

I mean,

– don’t you want to know what to do?

– don’t you want to know what the goal God has for you?

– don’t you want to be driven by a mission that wakes you up in the middle of the night? A mission that pushes you to your very best?

Just look around for a second. Use a little imagination to think about the culture we all live in:

We’ve got insanity all around us, don’t we? Every day we can turn on the TV and learn about people our age that died doing something stupid. Back in German where I used to live, a few years ago a couple of American kids were bored… so they started to throw stuff off of the overpass at oncoming cars on the autobahn. I’m sure it started off simple, pebbles, sticks, candy, pennies… on and on it went. Well, one of them got the bright idea that they could throw a huge chunk of concrete off of the overpass and scare somebody. The guy never saw it coming. It his the roof of his BMW, smashed the windshield and killed him instantly. Pretty funny, eh?

Back here in Romeo… you probably all know people from school who are sleeping around, partying. Some people are having so much sex… they don’t even call it sex anymore. It’s just something to do. Every time you turn around, you find out that a person is trying drugs or went to a crazy party or cheated on their boyfriend… on and on. Have you ever wondered why people do stuff like this? I’m sure there are lots of reasons… none of them are their fault, I’m sure of that, right? But I’m positive that some of them do stuff like this simply because they aren’t thinking about anything. They are bored, lonely; feel like what they do doesn’t matter… in a nutshell, they feel worthless. They feel like their lives have no point. No purpose. No mission in life.

Look, if you are a believer in Jesus today… you may feel like that sometimes, but I’m here to tell you… you’re life does have a purpose, a meaning… and a mission. Let’s take a look at it.

Here is our mission: I call it GC2.

Matthew 22:37-40. Great Commandment. (Love God, love others)

– Love God with everything you’ve got!

– Love others like crazy!

Matthew 27: 19. Great Comission (Make disciples)

– Go and make disciples

o If you want to learn how to make disciples, it’s coming this fall. Hold on!

In our mission statement we see this GC2 all over the place.

“Light Force desires to love God and love others by intentionally modeling a life devoted to becoming disciples of Jesus Christ.”

So, where we look at Light Force… and we see those words, we know that as a group we should be striving to create an environment where GC2 is everywhere. Our real challenge is “How do you do this?”

Here’s the cliffhanger…

you guessed it, more pics 

still more rafting pics