Yellow Community Group - Philippians 2

So I was here with the intent on finally reflecting on Beth Moore's morning session talk at Passion. I re-watched the message a couple weeks ago and took down more notes. I was all prepared and then I went back to look at the notes I took at Passion and realized that we had a community group meeting that morning before the main session. It was some good stuff, so here it is. Beth Moore will be next.

We were split into smaller community groups to try and create a sense of community at Passion. I was in the Yellow community group which had about 1,000 people in it. But we all broke up into groups of about 6-8 people, got to know them and were able to talk and reflect as the weekend went on. It was a really great way to get to know people and I really enjoyed being able to talk things through and process it all with others who were hearing and experiencing all the same stuff.

That morning we talked about Philippians 2:1-11. Our community group leader was a guy, (I think his name was Aaron, but I don't remember) from New York City. He was really great and I really enjoyed the community group time.

So just a warning. This might be all over the place. I took notes, but I don't have it recorded or anything to re-live it and I don't remember everything. My notes are a little scattered, so sorry.

Okay, so Philippians 2. I'll type it out for you.

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, any comfort from his love, any fellowship with the spirit, and tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vein conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also the interests of others.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being the very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!

Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

I love these verses!

Aaron started off by talking about people who were being persecuted daily, something that I don't think we understand or have really experienced. At least I haven't. To the extent of people in the Bible or people in countries where worshiping God is illegal. Aaron, I think, started talking about people who meet in caves, or underground places. When they met, they knew that there was a good chance not all of them would be there the next time. It was that dangerous. And because of that, each time they met, they preached the gospel to each other.

In chapter 2 Paul turns to the Philippians and encourages them to advance the gospel.

It is hard for us to talk about identifying with Jesus in his humiliation. We don't get it in the same way he experienced it.

We are going to have to give up everything. Lay it all out there. For the sake of the gospel. You have to loose some things in order to gain some things. My life for your life.

Jesus humbled himself - became humiliated in order to become obedient to death. Even death on a cross. I find that I often don't associate being humble and humiliated in as close of context as they are. Jesus was humiliated in his death on the cross.

But Paul reminds the Philippians of the prize. "THEREFORE - God exalted him to the highest place..." Jesus is the prize. God's glory is the result. Humiliation had to happen in order for the resurrection to happen.

Do we understand the God-centeredness of Jesus?

If Jesus is truly God, how do we re-shape our lives? How does that change the way you live your life? What does that look like?

Is he real to you?

Jesus made himself nothing. He made himself a servant. Jesus is God (verse 6). YET willfully gave up all rights and privileges of being God. He subjected himself to the humiliation of death on a cross. He gave up everything.

In the church in Acts they were willing to give up everything for each other. In our society we think we have earned rights to certain things. We feel a sense of entitlement.

Am I willing to give that up?

Verse 9 is the prize. God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. We are able to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus! But the resurrection isn't possible, if the humiliation didn't happen.

Sanctification (the process of becoming more like Christ) requires hardship.

********************

Looking back at this on Resurrection Sunday, I am yet again refreshed by the gospel. The message at the church I went to this morning was an excellent representation of the gospel. Here it is if you are interested. http://redemptionhill.com/easter-it-matters-part-1/ (just copy and paste, I couldn't figure out the link thing)

Heavy Heart

Today I checked my email at school and sadly got this email from Crossroads, the church I love in Grand Rapids. The church I love.

"Dear Crossroads family,

It is 3:30 in the morning, and I never thought I would be in a situation where I would need to inform Crossroads that I have lost a best friend and Crossroads has lost a pastor. Derek Taatjes and his son Dylan went to be with Jesus tonight.

My heart is numb with shock and devastated. No words can describe the grief of my heart. This is only a fraction of what Charity is experiencing, and their daughters Ella and JoJo, along with Derek's parent's Doug and Linda, and sister, Hillary.

I praise God for this community, because I know we will be Christ to this family and to each other as we mourn together in the loss of our brother and son.

Let me end with one of Derek's favorite verses.

The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.²

Derek loved this verse. I know he would love for us to love this verse right now.

Your brother,

Rod"

My heart just sank. I got to know Derek pretty well during my last year at Calvin as he took over the college-aged group, which I was really involved in. I was just at his house a little over a month ago visiting with a dear friend who was babysitting. There was a fire in the house and it is believed that Derek and Dylan succumbed to the smoke and fumes. Charity and the girls were on vacation.

My mind goes in a million different directions. A broken heart. Rejoicing in Derek and Dylan's lives. Rejoicing in the fact that they are in heaven with Jesus. Questioning why. Just a sad and heavy heart. And then thinking about Charity, Derek's wife, and my mind cannot even begin to comprehend. Not even begin. Her husband. Her 6 month old son.

But like one of Derek's favorite verses - may the Lord be praised. God is and will bring great good from this. It doesn't make it easy. It doesn't make the pain go away. But the Lord's name will be praised. Derek touched SO many lives in his life. And I know he will continue to touch SO many in his death.

Sometimes death just puts a reality on life. We tend to get in the mindset that we're invincible. It makes you ask what you're living for and what will people say or remember about you. Do people really know you and what you think is important?

I'm having a hard time being in Virginia. My heart is just SO at Crossroads and leaving that church was the hardest part about leaving Michigan. I want to be there with my church family as they pull together and go through this tragedy as a church. I want to be there this Sunday as they have one big service all together. But the Lord has called me here. Sometimes, in moments like these, I don't know why. But I know he has. And I have to trust that.

Please pray. From so far away that is all I can do. And I have to remind myself that it is something. Praying isn't just the last resort. It is active and powerful. Please join me in prayer for Crossroads and the Taatjes family. Please. Please pray for Charity. For an incomprehensible, indescribable peace that could only come from the Father.

May the Lord be praised.

Fort Worth

This weekend was Passion 2011 in Fort Worth. I prayed for them all weekend and from the blog update of pictures I saw, it seemed like they were having an amazing time. I just kept praying that God would work in the hearts and lives of everyone there, that they would experience the Lord like we did in Atlanta. It was so cool to feel like I was a part of the conference even though I wasn't there. We've all been praying for them since our conference ended. God is so good. I have a close friend that went, so I'm excited to hear how it went. And now I can finally take off this wristband that is falling apart :) Beth Moore talk update to come soon.

Louie Giglio - Opening Session

After amazing worship led by David Crowder Band (I think, if I remember correctly) Louie Giglio, who although I don't personally know him, is one of my favorite people ever, shared a great message with us to kick off Passion 2011 Atlanta.

He opened by telling us it is possible to be free and fully alive. He gave us power, encouraging us that we can change the world. He showed us a Time magazine who named Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year. Mark is only 26 years old and the creator of facebook. Facebook has changed our lives. It has changed the world. It changed the way we communicate, the way we relate to people and the vocabulary we choose. Most people know what it means when someone takes a picture and they say, "tag me!" Louie shared a little bit about Mark, that people have offered him a billion dollars for facebook and he won't sell it. Because he loves it. A BILLION dollars. The article stated that Mark lives in a rented house, doesn't have a tv, drives an acura, and couldn't care less about material things. On his facebook pages, one of his "likes" is - "eliminating desire, it is so easy to get caught up in the things that don't matter."

May our prayers be, "Jesus drown out the desire in my heart for anything that doesn't really matter."

Jesus is the greatest name in history. The greatest of the past, the greatest of the present and will be the greatest name forever. May we make our lives count for what counts. The thing that matters : to him who sits on the throne, and the lamb be blessing and honor, glory and power forever and ever. Thats it.

We have to eliminate worldly desires.

The date that night was 1.1.11. Louie talked about how it was a new start. A fresh beginning. One beginning, one birth, one start, something new. It is possible to be free and fully alive.

We then looked at the first word of Philippians 1:1.

*side note: when Louie said to turn to Philippians and that we would be diving into Philippians this weekend, I got super excited! Philippians has been a theme for me over the last two years. I really want to memorize the whole book of Philippians and have been working on it on and off for the last two years. I also did a bible study on Philippians last year and it is also what I dove into with my mentor my last semester at Calvin. I only have the first chapter of Philippians memorized and have wanted to work on it more, but it is so hard! I just want to really really memorize it. To where I don't even have to think about the words, they just roll off my tongue. And memorizing is hard work. I'm also someone who never makes new years resolutions. Cause I always think that it has to be something that I do everyday and I know that I can't commit to that, so I don't do anything. But...while at Passion, I decided it would be a good new years resolution to have the whole book of Philippians memorized by next year. Totally doable. So keep me accountable to that. Ask me how I'm doing. I'm currently not too much further. I need to work on it.

Okay, so Philippians 1:1 (sorry, this is going to be really really long. It's good information though, I promise!)The first word of Philippians is "Paul." At first I was confused. Louie was making such a big deal about the first word, and all it was was Paul. I knew it. I'd repeated it hundreds of times. But this is why we have teachers :) This greeting, which is typical in many letters, is actually not Paul just saying, "oh hi, I'm Paul." In that first word he announces that all things can be made new. He's saying, "I used to be Saul, but now I'm coming to you as Paul." Back a couple books in Acts, times were not so good for followers of Jesus.

In Acts, Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and proclaimed the name of Jesus. Stephen was a follower of Christ, filled with great faith and boldness. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, the last verse in Acts 6 even says that his face was like the face of an angel. The people of the law at that time hated Stephen. Acts 7:54 says, "when they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him." So mad and furious their teeth were chattering. Acts 7 continues the story. Stephen pointed to heaven and said look - the heavens were opening. The men screamed and covered their ears. They took him and stoned him. Meanwhile, the crowd is laying down cloth for Saul to walk on. Stephen prayed that the Lord would receive his spirit. Acts 8:1 "And Saul was there, giving approval to his death." He approved of it! It had his "blessing." And now fast forward to Philippians and Paul (who was Saul) is writing to encourage the church.

God changed his name. God changed his identity. God opened his eyes, gave him a new passion, a new view of life, a new reason to live. He had a new beginning. In one word "Paul" - we get the gospel. God uses his enemies for the greatest things on Earth.

We were all enemies of God. He has reconciled us by Christ's physical body by death. It is because of His grace. God chooses to use his enemies. He wants to use us. He wants to restore our lives. He wants to be a part of eliminating desire in our lives. Jesus made peace for all of us.

Philippians 1:3-6 Paul prays for us. And he is confident that God is not going to quit on the work that he started in us. God is for us. God is committed to making me like Jesus. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are praying for us right now.

In verse 12 Paul says, "now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel." What had happened?

Paul was arrested and had been put in jail. He was chained to someone. He was not in ideal circumstances. It cost Paul a lot to push for the name of Jesus. Paul is writing this letter to Philippi from jail, with Timothy. He was chained up. In jail. But here he is saying, "oh don't worry, its all good. The whole entire palace guard and everyone else knows the name of Jesus. They know that Christ is the one who changed my life." It's almost as if he's even saying, "we didn't know how we would reach all these people. We didn't know how to share the great news with everyone inside. Well now we have! Everyone inside the palace guard knows the name of Jesus and they know that it is because of him my life is changed." And most of those people probably initially knew Paul as Saul.

We, us, in our culture have become such complainers! Paul understood that circumstances do not have anything to do with our joy and freedom. Circumstances do not have power over us both being free in Christ and fully alive. God does not care about our circumstances - they do not limit Him.

Louie then shared a story of a young guy, John Evans, who had recently died of cancer. He was at Passion 2010; leaving during the breaks to go get treatments. At his funeral his friends and family couldn't stop talking about how much he loved the Lord. Reading from his journal and hearing what people had to say, showed the life he lived. Apparently, cancer can't keep you from being free and fully alive. We preach our own funerals - who we are and what we live for. People cannot say things at our funeral that are not true.

Either our circumstances rise up and chain us there, or we let Jesus set us free. God has a purpose and a plan.

Philippians 1:21 "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Paul is saying, "If I live - great! I'm gonna keep shouting the name of Jesus. If you kill me, and I die - great! That is great gain, I get the prize of going to be with Jesus!" Paul basically said, "You have no chains on me."

The opposite happens to us. We say that we're not going to be chained by anything. We're going to do our own thing. Nothing will chain us down. And we think that by doing our own thing we'll find freedom. But doing our own thing equals chains. All doing our own thing does is wrap a chain around our necks in about 5 seconds. Freedom comes from choosing the chain. The chain of Jesus sets us free. I want to choose for my life to be connected to Him. I choose Jesus. The second we choose to connect our lives to Jesus, we are instantly and forever free. We are free from everything the moment we choose to chain our lives to Jesus. You can choose to not chain your life to anything or anybody. Fine. But know that something is coming back at you and will grab a hold of you. There is no option in the middle. Either you choose it, or it will choose you.

Johnathan Edwards had made a New Years resolution - I will choose to live for God - it is a chain. When I choose that, I said no to every other chain.

This is similar to marriage. And why Louie joked it is so hard for guys to commit sometimes. Because saying yes to one girl, means saying no to every other girl in the world. And sometimes that is much harder.

The same goes for choosing a chain. Saying YES to Jesus, means you are saying NO to everything else this world has to offer.

Louie closed with two John Piper quotes,

"God is glorified best in me when I am satisfied most in him."

"The glory of God is man fully alive."

The Plan: to live to the FULL - being free.

When you say, "Yes" to Jesus, he can do everything. No matter what circumstance we are in.

Passion Atlanta 2011

Okay, I'm doing it. After two months of wanting to, but not being sure I could make the commitment, I've just got to do it. I need to sit down and fully reflect on Passion and the amazing encounters with Jesus and Truth that I had. I'm sorry if it's boring, I hope it's not, but it is something that I need to do for me, and if I'm going to sit down and hash things out, I feel like I might as well put it somewhere that maybe someone else will learn from it too. So this is my commitment, that I am going to walk through Passion Atlanta 2011 for you. Talk by talk, session by session. It's going to take a while, there are going to be many posts, but I need to do it.

In our community group on the last day we were all talking about what we were going to say to people when they asked about how Passion was. It's something that you can't really describe. The answer: Jesus. That is what Passion was about, that is what I got out of it. Jesus. He was there. He was present. But to try and flesh that out...someone said that they calculated it out and said that it would take 4.3 billion words to describe the four days of Passion. I'm not gonna be able to do that. Someone else calculated it out that at the average rate of human speech (100wpm) it would take seven weeks to describe Passion 2011. And I'm someone who's long winded :) So we'll see where this goes, I'd love to just write about what each person shared, my experience walking though the weekend and what the Lord has been teaching me. It may take all year. But I really feel like it is something I need to do. So I am publicly stating that I'm going to reflect on Passion. Not that I haven't at all, but I want to make sure that I do it justice in my own walk with the Lord.

I just watched a video on a glimpse of Passion and it made me so excited about it again. I'm planning on re-watching all the talks and recapping them and reflecting on them when I'm done. We'll see how it goes. I hope you learn from it and aren't bored.

Jobs

I didn't realize how far behind I was. I didn't update about the job situation. But I started the overnight job and it's going really well. And then I got the job at the school! So yay! And...here we go...

I just finished my first week of two jobs and I'm...tired. It's going to be a lot, it's gonna be crazy busy, but it's manageable. It's definitely a lot to take in, and will take some time getting used to, but I'm just gonna try to enjoy it. My big stretch is from Monday night to Thursday afternoon. I work around the clock. One job to the next with a thirty minute break to go back home and make my lunch for the next day.

It just seems like I can't have a schedule that is somewhere in the middle. I either have no plans, or am insanely busy. Nothing in between. Which honestly, can be quite frustrating. When I have nothing going on, I get nothing done. Which is so annoying. Like if I have one thing to do, but all the time in the world, it never gets done cause I can always do it later. But when I am insanely busy, I don't have time to get anything done! And my schedule just never seems to be somewhere in the middle.

I really like both jobs though and they're both too good to pass up. It's going to be a busy couple of months, but hopefully it will be great. A time to trust the Lord and rely on him for strength. This is the schedule and the jobs he has laid before me and I'm ready to embrace it. New places, new relationships and another opportunity to trust the Lord. May his will be done...

Weekend of Motherhood

It's been a while since my weekend with the boys, but it was tons of fun! I did most of my updating through facebook, but here are some pictures. It was a great weekend, lots of fun and quality time with my amazing nephews :)


We lounged...


And Laughed...


Played "peek-a-boo"...


Went for a walk...


Went to the mall...


And wished Aunt Janelle a Happy Birthday!