Last night on the field we looked at some key things if we want to make our Summer count. Here are the notes:
Ephesians 5:15-16
Whether summer or winter, the days are evil. He does not say we should fear the times we live in, or that we should run from the times we live in. Our reaction to realizing that the times we live in are evil should be to make the best possible use of our time (according to God’s standard). So how do you redeem a summer according to God’s standards? (see Chapter 5 and 6)
- We examine our lives honestly… to make sure that
- we live deliberately and carefully … so that
- we make the best use of all the opportunities our times grant us.
Galatians 5:13-26
v.13 The freedom of the believer—a real thing! But it is not to be used as an opportunity to indulge the appetites we would have without God. Instead, freedom makes us the kind of people that can afford to love.
v.16 How can we have freedom without dissolving into sin and non-sense?
The power of the Spirit. (The Spirit is the true God who is present with us, with the power to interact with us in a way that changes us, so that we take on his characteristics.)
v.22 What does the Spirit of God produce in someone’s life? Love, Joy, Peace. As I recently heard it said: “These are not doctrines, these are emotions.” Christians: do you really have these things in your lives?
- Mt 24:12 This is a Love that doesn’t fade even with all the sin which is ruining the world.
- James 1:2 This is a Joy that doesn’t depend on personal good times.
- Phil 4:6-7 This is a Peace that isn’t ruined by situations which could cause anxiety.
This is love, joy, peace that is bigger than friends and good times! It doesn’t come from having our situation just right. It comes from knowing an eternal, ever-present friend who guarantees that eternal, universal good times are coming! He himself is full of love, joy and peace. And he brings it to those who turn to him, and who carefully see that their lives depend on him, communicate with him, and follow his lead on a minute by minute basis. Am I starving for the next good time, so I can get a little peace and joy in my life? Or am I getting acquainted with the Spirit of God so he can share HIS with me?
What keeps me from these things? What ruins my ability to share in God’s love, joy and peace?
Not messed up people ruining things. Not difficult situations that come into my life. Not scary news and tense geo-political environments.
v.17 The issue isn’t situational, it’s spiritual. The issue is desire.
Whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
v.19-21 The beginning and end of this list things constitutes what most people want out of summer. If I want the beginning and the end of the list, I get what’s in the middle.
Summarizing Challenges:
For Christians:
Honestly: is my inner, private life characterized by love joy and peace? Is my social life characterized by love, joy and peace? Whenever it’s not, I am allowing old desires to dominate me at some level. I am not allowing the Spirit of God, through God’s word, to lead me through life by directing my thoughts and actions. As a result, no matter how many good times I try to have, the days that we live in, with all their evil, will squeeze out my love, joy, and peace. I’ll find myself growing cold, hard and anxious. The solution is to settle it once and for all that I am not going to live to try to gratify the old desires I have in my heart, but instead I will learn what the Spirit of God desires, and allow his desires to direct my choices. This keeps me in close friendship with him, and he is such an influence on me that his qualities shape me. He shares his love, joy, and peace with me. I become a person of total freedom: generous, strong, unworried and smiling whether I’m on the beach with my friends or I’m sitting in the hospital, waiting for news from the doctor, next to a stranger, reading the world news. Whether I’m in a boat on the lake or at work with my boss. I will understand how to redeem my time, and how to make it eternally significant.
For Non-Christians:
Where is your source of love, joy and peace in life? Are you really finding it in the things we’re all told we should want? God offers a life that transcends the things we call normal. You don’t find God or spiritual experiences by doing things to try to get happy. You find him by realizing he’s reaching out to you, the Spirit of God is near you, desiring to introduce you to Jesus and bring you into a close relationship with God as your father. He’s inviting you to turn away from the things your inner desires drive you to do, and to be reborn and remade in His image. This is the way to find huge, eternal, unshakeable love, joy, and peace.