SKATE CHURCH HAPPENINGS.
SkateChurch has been going really well. Once again we are in a season where a ton of youth are showing up on Thursday nights. Last Thursday night we had a ton of new young people that I have never seen before. We have been continuing on in teaching verse by verse through the gospel of John. And for the past two weeks we've have been showing a video called "Invisible Children." The video is about the atrocities happening to children in Uganda who are kidnapped, brainwashed by the LRA and forced to kill people. A few American guys went over there and documented what is happening. Anyway, after the video there was an opportunity for young people who have yet to receive Christ to pray and ask Him into their hearts. 10 young people made a first time decision to follow Christ and another 2 young people recommitted their lives to Christ. THANK YOU LORD! That makes 29 conversions at FacePlant Ministries so far this year and 192 total conversions since FacePlant Ministries was started in 2006. Each young person who made that decision for Christ met after the teaching with Russ and I where we talked more to them about their decision to follow Chirst. Each of them received a Bible and an invitation to other church activities. Please pray for these young people, that they would grow in their walk with the One who made everything from nothing and breathes new life into spirit of man.
Notes on John.
CHAPTER ONE
*John 1:1-1:18 - We learned how Jesus is God and we talked about the triune nature of God, being Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We talked about the nature of water or H2O in relation to the Trinity. Water can be in liquid form, solid form (ice) or vapor form (steam) yet is still H2O. Each form of water has it's own purpose yet is still the same substace. Similarly, God is three Persons yet one God. The Father, the Son (Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit have different roles but are the same in essence. "How can Jesus be both God and God's Son?" you might ask. Well I am a father, a son and a husband, yet I am still Christian Jung. Our minds can scarcely understand how all of this works and these simple analogies are just an attempt to make it more clear to us in our finite minds. We also learned that Jesus is the Light of the world. People react differently when a bright light shines in their faces in the dark. They either turn their head and look away from the light or they open their eyes and slowly let their eyes adjust to the light, ultimately, letting the light in. Just like that, when the light of Christ shines into peoples lives, they either turn away from Jesus, or they let Jesus into their lives.
*John 1:19-34 - We learned about John the baptist and his ministry. We that John the baptist (different than the guy who wrote the gospel of John) was "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Make straight the way of the Lord.'" When a king was going to enter a region he would send out people to literally clear the road of debris so his travels would be smooth. King Jesus was about to enter into His public ministry while John the baptist prepared the way for this to happen by baptizing people and telling them that they needed to turn away from their sins. We were still having SkateChurch outside during this part of Johns gospel. I purposely placed rocks in front of the church and tried to ride my skateboard through the rocks. Of course I fell and FACEPLANTED in front of the youth. Then I had some volunteers come up and push the rocks off to the side and tried to skate through that area again. Of course, I then was able to skate unhindered by anything in the road. The rocks that block the road for Christ to enter our lives are sin. We need to ask Jesus to remove the sin from our lives in order for Christ to enter into our hearts.
*John 1:35-51 - Jesus began to gather his twelve disciples (or students) around Him. When Andrew hung out with Jesus for a day, the first thing he did was find his brother, Peter, and told him to "come and see" this Jesus. You see, Andrew had a life changing experience when he met Jesus Christ. Excitement about that encounter led him to want to connect others to Christ as well. If people have truly come into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ, their reaction should be to bring other people to him. Has this happened in our lives? Are we bringing other people to Christ? Also, as Jesus was choosing His disciples, He saw Nathaniel under the fig tree. In talking to Nathaniel, Jesus spoke things into His life that no stranger would ever had known about. In other words, Jesus read Nathaniel's mail. Jesus knew everything about Nathaniel because Jesus is God. Jesus knows everything about you and I as well. There is nothing we can do, nowhere we can go to escape the eyes of God. When Christ reads your mail, is it good news?
CHAPTER TWO
*John 2:1-12 - In this passage Jesus turned water into wine. Was He promoting drunkenness? Absolutely not. As we read on we will find that Jesus cares about every detail of our lives. Even the master of the feast commented on the quality of wine that Jesus turned water into.
*John 2:13-25 - Jesus shows His righteous anger by turning over the tables of people who had turned the Temple (the house of prayer) into a money making operation. These people were extortionists, yet doing this in the name of God. The money changers would examine a lmab brought in to sacrifice and tell the person it wasn't good enough for God, they would buy it for a cheap price and then sell that person another lamb at a high cost. Then they would turn around and sell the lamb they just bought that "wasn't good enough for God" and sell it at a high price as though it was a better lamb. They were cheapening the sacrifice. Jesus became furious and drove those people out of the Temple. Church is a place where people are to give of their time, talent and treasure, not a place where spectators can come and get stuff. What are our motives in coming to church? Are our motives to come to church to give, building up the body of Christ, or to just receive and feel good?
CHAPTER THREE
*John 3:1-21 - A seeker called Nicodemus comes to talk with Jesus as night (the original Nick at Night). Jesus tells this man that no one can enter the kingdom of heaven unless he has been BORN AGAIN. He further explains that being born again means being born of water and the Spirit (water meaning physical birth and Spirit meaning spiritual birth). If you are born once(naturally) , you will die twice (naturally and spiritually in hell), but if you are born twice (naturally and spiritually) you will only die once (physically...spiritually you will live forever in heaven). Jesus also quotes from Numbers 21:4-9 and shares a story about how the children of Israel had been bitten by deadly snakes and how Moses made a bronze snake, put it on a stick and lift it up high, so that whoever looked upon the bronze snake on the stick would be healed. At SkateChurch I threw out a whole bunch of toy rubber snakes as an illustration. Here's the truth: We have all been bitten by the snake (sin...also representing Satan at the fall of man). If we look to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and believe in Him with our whole hearts, we will also be healed from the snake bite wound (saved from hell and destined for heaven). The thing is, are we lifting up Jesus Christ in our lives for others to see and be healed themselves?
*John 3:22-36 - Some people began to wonder why many people began to follow Jesus and not John the baptist anymore. John's response is priceless: "He must increase and I must decrease." In our lives, we should be saying the same thing concerning Jesus Christ: He must increase and I must decrease. We need to, everyday, surrender every area of our lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ so that He calls the shots in our lives, not us.
CHAPTER FOUR
*John 4:1-26 - Jesus and His disciples pass through Samaria. Most Jews would take routes around Samaria because they despised the Samaritans. To the Jews, Samaritans were half-breeds and not considered God's chosen people. Racism was very real even in Jesus' time. If it wasn't politically incorrect enough to travel through Samaria, Jesus also began to talk to a Samiritan woman at the well while His disciples were off running errands. Jesus breaks down all racial barriers. The conversation that Jesus had with her was not only life-changing for her, but also for the village where she was from. She went back and brought other Samaritans to Jesus. Many from that city were saved that day as they, too, put their trust in Jesus. Yet another example of how Christ can not only change us individually, but entire regions can be transformed because of the gospel of Christ.
*John 4:27-54 - The harvest is white and ready to be picked. Most of us didn't grow up on the farm. We don't really understand what it means that a crop is ready to be harvested. Jesus tells us that people are ready to hear and respond to the gospel. Why are we waiting to tell others about Christ? Are we afraid of rejection? Do we figure that someone else will come along and tell them about Jesus? Are you worried that your lifestyle doesn't match up with what your are preaching? My friends, there needs to be an urgency in us to share the good news that Jesus Christ came to the earth and died for our sins. We should share this news with people in our circles of influence, in our schools, in our neighborhoods and across the entire world. People out there are just waiting for you and I to tell them about Jesus. What is holding us back?
CHAPTER FIVE
*John 5:1-15 - Back in the day, there was a body of water in Jerusalem called Bethesda. A bunch of crippled and sick people would hang out around this small body of water because at a certain time, an angel would stir up the pool. When this happened the first person to enter into the water would be healed from their infirmities. Jesus had a conversation with a man who could never seem to make it into the pool in time. Jesus simply asked the man if he wanted to be made well and then healed him supernaturally. It happened to be the Sabbath and as the now healed man carried his bed away, the religious leaders warned him not to carry his bed on the Sabbath. As the man explained what had happened, the religios leaders began to ask who it was that healed him. The man didn't know who it was that healed him. Then, Jesus found the man who had been healed back in the Temple, probably begging again as he did before he was healed. Jesus warned him that if he continued to sin after he had been healed something worse would happen to him. I find it interesting that after many of us have experienced salvation through Jesus Christ...we've been healed spiritually by Jesus. Yet so often we return to the patterns of sin that we were just forgiven of. Where is our gratitude towards the One who died for us? Why do we continue to break His heart in our disobedience? In the book of Hebrews 10:26, "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin." And in Hebrews 10:29 we read, "Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" I know that we can't live righteously on our own power. None of us can muster up enough strength on our own to live in obedience to Christ. That's why we must walk in the Spirit and let Christ who lives in us, live through us...giving Him complete control of our lives daily. Only then can we conquer such patterns of sin in our lives.
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Christian Young
FP SkateChurch Pastor
