Youth Advance-Unapproachable Light-Part 2/5 March 13, 2009

Click here to listen to the message, Unapproachable Light, here!
-This is one of the songs we started singing at Youth Advance. My favorite songgggg.
Main Session 2. Pastor Greg Dutcher. Saturday AM. 3/7/09. Passage: 1 Timothy 6:13-16
I like the way he started off this message. He said “we’re going to look at something we cannot look at.”
“…He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the Kind of kings and the Lord of lords, who long has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”
Big Idea: In order to celebrate the joy and freedom the light of the gospel brings, we must first learn to appreciate the horrible distance between us and our spiritual darkness and God in His marvelous light.
We are to celebrate Jesus, who is unapproachable because the Bible puts a lot of emphasis on it. We are to be covered with light though (PS. 104:2) and God says “you cannot see my face…my face shall not be seen” (Ex 33:18-23)
We have a fear of this unknown, fear of feeling small, fear of other presence. C.S. Lewis calls this “fear of numinous.” You see, it is God’s intention that we shudder in his presence. Ps 97:5 says that the mountains melt like wax and Isa 66:1-2 talks about trembling at His Word.
So I have to ask myself: Have I become so accustomed to the Bible that I am casual about God and His Word? That’s a terrible place to be, but I’m afraid I have arrived at that place, slowly but surely.
Do I worship RELIGION OR GOD?
God’s Holiness-or, “otherness”
it’s far more than Him being “nice and religious.” Holy= above and beyond anything in the world. I always thought I could understand holy. No, I cannot understand that God is holy. I don’t understand “holy” -it is beyond me.
God is NOT just a superhuman.
God is holy and that means that God is God-its the same thing.
Holy= not simply the best we know infinitely better. We know nothing like the divine holiness-A.W.Tozer
In the Bible, to emphasis stuff, they repeat it. They say God is holy, holy, holy-emphasising that. Doesn’t say God is love love love or mercy mercy mercy or wrath wrath wrath or justice justice justice. God is Holy holy holy-R.C. Sproul
1 Sam 2:2-None besides me. Isa 40:25-To whom will you compare me? Hos 11:9-I am God, NOT man.

What happens when a really religious sinner steps on God’s turf? Isa 6:1-7 -Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. the whole earth is full of his glory!”
Have I and DO I have “woe is me” moment(s)?
Isaiah sees God a LITTLE BIT BETTER than most people.
You can’t meet Jesus until you have a “woe is me” experience.
God’s holiness is all-consuming-even the temple can’t contain it. 
What is my response when I see the one of “otherness”? -> “woes is me! For I am lost!”?
Isaiah feels domed-completely unworthy to stand in God’s presence.
Unless God acts on our behalf-there’s not a thing we can do-WE ARE DOOMED
DANGER: YOU CAN’T PULL YOURSELF OUT OF THIS DOOM. DON’T TRY.
There is good news: The gospel. When God opens our eyes to see spiritually, we can then chose to trust in His son, being seen as righteous, and that is an amazing truth.
When Peter saw Jesus he fell before him, shuddered because he knew his sin.
You must cry out for the light of the gospel to lead you out of the darkness.
   acts 20:26
Take that power that Satan now has, and turn it all over to Jesus.
“We can cry ‘hallelujah’ with authenticity only after we have first cried, ‘woe is me, for I am lost.'”-John Stott
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I just loved this message. I didn’t do it justice with my little notes.  As Pastor Greg was preaching this message, I realized I have ‘grown up Christian” and therefore, I have become quite comfortable with the idea of God and Jesus being “holy.” I feel that my reverence for the Lord has just about disappeared. I think of Jesus too comfortably. I want to shudder when I think of the Lord. I don’t want to be afraid of Him, for I know he is kind and gracious to me, but I want to give Him the glory he deserves. It is just amazing that I can commune with Him-But I am, by no means, on the same level as God. He is far superior to me, a little child. This was my favorite message because God spoke to me, reminding me of who He is-How great He is, how HOLY He is. And how I have forgotten that. He’s become my “dawg” as Pastor Greg put it. I don’t want to stand before God with that attitude. I want to have a holy reverence for Him, His Son, His Spirit, and His Word.

Youth Advance-Marvelous Light-Part 1/5 March 12, 2009

Click here to listen to the message, Marvelous Light!

This is a new song we learned at Youth Advance
This is hopefully one of five posts about Youth Advance, the youth retreat I was at this past weekend. There were five sermons and I just wanna say the highlights of each, and hopefully talk a good amount about the second message, which seemed to impact me the most. These will be choppy and mighttt not make sense-its mostly just the main points and my scribbled notes.
The theme of the weekend was “Marvelous Light.”
Anyway, message one.
Session 1 was entitled “Marvelous Light” and was spoken by Pastor Matt on Friday Night. The text used was 2nd Corinthians 4:3-6.
Main question: Why is it that some people trust in and treasure Jesus and others don’t?
Answer 1: People DON’T trust in and treasure Jesus because they’re spiritually blind.
Pastor Matt talked a good amount about Satan. He was saying how Satan will brainwash us. Satan doesn’t care what we believe, as long as we don’t believe in Jesus. Actually, I take that back. Satan doesn’t care if we believe Jesus (he himself believes!), but Satan doesn’t want us to BOW OUR KNEE to Jesus. The god of this age is Satan. Satan likes when people don’t believe in him-He is an invisible enemy. Questions I asked myself were “is Jesus boring to me?” “Is Jesus just a picture to me of is he REAL?” “What is Satan blinding me from?” Satan will blind me from things so I wont see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Pastor Matt said that there is near-sightedness-where you only see yourself and your desires.
Then there is far-sightedness-where you see the world and its pleasures.
Am I near or far sighted? I’d say I’m near sighted. The world doesn’t entice me nearly as much my own selfish desires.
Pastor Matt talked about the two ways you can be held hostage. The first way is by being held against your will- you don’t wanna go or comply to the captor. The second way is by playing mind games with you, much like a cult leader. You buy into and believe all that you’re being told to do by the captor. Satan likes to use this second way-so we don’t even know that we’re being held hostage or controlled by him. Satan actually likes if we don’t believe or acknowledge him-that gives him the upper hand.
Answer 2: People DO trust in and treasure Jesus because they’re given spiritual sight.
VS. 4- Blinded-don’t see Jesus for who He is
Vs. 6- God says let there be light-and light!-see Jesus for who He is.
We’re all slaves-but who is our master?
Proclaim= to herald gooooood news.
Marvelous Light-it is marvelous because of what it reveals/shows you.
You see spiritually by your ears.
There are active and passive unbelievers.
The same God that turns our physical lights on, turns our spiritual lights on also.
DROP THINGS AND JUMP THROUGH THE NARROW DOOR AND RELY ON GRACE!!!
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That’s it 🙂
Thanks again, Pastor Matt, for speaking! This was a great message.