Men's Workout #9 - July 1st

OPENING DEVOTIONAL

Pastor Dan opened us up with a hymn titled “Take Time to be Holy”, words by William D. Longstaff, music by George C Stebbins.

• At first glance, the words may sound a little corny but it’s such a good reminder to us that we need to commit time to seek the Lord, seek His word, minister to others, make friends with God’s people
• A little bit of background: William D. Longstaff Inherited a shipping business from his parents (they were ship owners), and used his financial means to support the missions efforts of D.L. Moody and others.
• While he led the busy life of a businessman, he had a desire to honor and glorify God with his life.
• Let us be reminded of the practical call for people of God to exercise common sense wisdom in our walk with the Lord, namely that it takes time to build our relationship with God.

Pastor Dan then led us in a devotional of 1 Corinthians 2:1-16

• The Wisdom of God is distinct from, and surpasses the wisdom of the world
  • There is a temptation to try to make the gospel cater to the world, so that it is acceptable to the world
  • The reality is that the gospel is other-worldly, and the wisdom of God is at odds with the wisdom of world; until God transforms the heart of a sinner, they will never comprehend (think about the audiences of Jesus’s time, even the disciples)
• We can have great confidence in the sure truth of scripture, which is the mind of Christ (the mind of God) that the Spirit has given us as believers.
  • Whether the world understands or not does not change the truth of God’s word.
  • One example: the age of the earth. The world is not millions of years old, but thousands of years old as the genealogies of Genesis tell us.
• The world will never understand creation, the end times, and God’s sovereign plans for history.
  • The whole world was moving towards Christ’s first coming, and now is moving towards Christ’s second coming
  • We only understand this by the revelation of God.
• The gospel of God does not need worldly wisdom to do its work
  • Paul’s confidence is in what the Spirit can do, not confidence in his own oratory abilities.
  • This is because when the gospel of God encounters the elect, there is an amazing outcome: salvation! This is how the gospel of God is power for everyone who believes.
  • An illustration: If you’ve ever had a broken water pipe, there’s a repair kit that is a putty that consists of 2 different parts. It is initially soft and malleable but when the two parts are combined it becomes something totally different (a rock hard compound that adheres to the pipe to seal the leak)
  • All we have to do is preach the gospel in gentleness and respect, trusting that the gospel has the power to completely transform those whom God has chosen to save.
  • At the end of the day, the gospel doesn’t make sense to the world apart from the Spirit of God. But for the elect, it is understandable and produces salvation.
• This confidence in the gospel is also seen in Paul’s ministry at Athens
  • Acts 17:16 – Paul was escorted to Athens, and as he was waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him, he observed the idolatry and preached the gospel
  • He preached while “on vacation” to “educated” people – he was in an unfamiliar city, one with a reputation of being a highly educated city, yet preached with all boldness in spite of how the Athenians responded.
  • Would we have the mind of Christ, see things as Christ would, and act as Christ would

MEMORIZATION

To summarize Matthew 5: the premise is in verse 20, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” and that is fleshed out throughout the chapter. The key verse in Matthew 6 is verse 1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Jesus, talking to His disciples (rather than the crowds—He still presents God as their Father), makes strong contrasts between the absence of God in the Pharisees’ practices and the righteousness of believers, which is for God’s eyes only.

Our memory verses for this week, Matthew 6:1-6, are a 3-part section on hypocritical vs. God-pleasing righteousness:

• Vv2-4: you have no reward if you practice this kind of giving to the poor. You either get the honor from men or you get the acknowledgement from God (which is what we want as believers); you can’t have it both ways
• Vv5: all the hypocrites accomplishes with his prayer is to be seen by men
• Vv3-4, 6: “do not let your left hand…” and “close your door and pray…in secret” not to be taken literally, as though we must do these things in a secretive manner. The point is that our motives are pure and that we live out our faith for God’s eyes only, and not be hypocrites who act like these are for God when in reality it is for men’s applause.

CHILDREN'S VERSES

Creation was easy to recount because of the seven day sequence. Adam and Eve account is more challenging to remember the specifics so Pastor Dan prepared an acronym to help with this: ACTSS for this story and COMA for the story of Cain and Abel.

Reviewing Adam and Eve – ACTSS

1. Adam and Eve
2. Command
3. Temptation
4. Seed
5. Sent out

Some general notes on the handouts: Square brackets are things that you’re saying as you’re leading them along, text in bold are quotes, and the bold text is italicized when it’s paraphrased

Notes on ACTSS:

• Command – the command is a positive command, not a prohibitive one. It’s like Adam and Eve had a buffet, and could eat from any tree, except for one tree (can also use the teacher’s chair analogy).
• Temptation – When you say, “she gave also to her husband…” instead of holding your hand out to the side, you can use both hands and illustrate the handing off from one hand to the other
• Pause and take the time to make sure that the kids understand that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit they disobeyed God, that they didn’t trust God, and that this is bad.
• Seed – some translations use the word “crush”, but in Greek it’s the same word in both instances, and that’s why NASB translates both instances as bruise. However, it is important to note that what Satan experiences is fatal; a blow to the heel is not.
• Sent out – “sent him out…” we are point outward

Cain and Abel – COMA

1. Children
2. Offering
3. Murder
4. Ancestry

Notes on Ancestry:

• What this passage shows us is the clear generational connection from Adam to Noah – it traces back to the very beginning of time without any gaps! This tells the Israelites (and us) that the events of the bible are not a reality that is disconnected from the real world.
• Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, died the year of the flood
• Methuselah lived at the same time as Adam, the very first man who could testify of God, yet didn’t walk with God.
• This tells you the immensity of the sin of man
• How did Noah know God? He had a source of understanding of the truth of God, through his grandfather knew Adam.

Men's Workout #8 - June 24th

MEMORIZATION

We began this week’s workout with a midterm oral quiz through Matthew chapter 5. Each of the men took turns reciting as much of chapter 5 as they could remember in sequence. For example, one brother started the quiz by reciting the Beatitudes, and then the next person would recite as much as they could remember, and then the next person would pick up the baton and carry on as much as he could, and so on. Although there were a few stumbles, we were able to successfully make our way to the end of Matthew 5 together!

We then entered into a discussion of Matthew 5:38-48.

• “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”
  • Some might think that this means Christians ought never to go to court to settle certain matters. But the issue was never about never going to court. There definitely are some circumstances and matters that need to be settled in court (for example, defending the rights to freedom of religious gatherings & free speech).
  • The Scribes and Pharisees taught that restitution was just, but Jesus demanded the contrary – do not demand restitution. As Christians, we should be fine being wronged – if it is for the sake of making peace with others.

• “Love your neighbor”
  • We know that Scripture says that we must “love your neighbor as yourself” – but this doesn’t mean that we should also hate our enemies!
  • The Pharisees taught that neighbors should be loved, but enemies should be hated. However, the Lord tells us the opposite; God wants us to be like Him and love everyone without discrimination. God fills the entire world with His goodness for everyone to benefit. He is gracious without distinction and bestows common grace to all men.
  • This teaching doesn’t trump the teaching of Paul to show priority to those of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10), but it also doesn’t mean that we can callously let unbelievers crash and burn.
  • Loving your neighbor is NOT about doing charitable work in lieu of sharing the message of repentance and salvation through Christ, nor is loving your neighbor only about meeting their physical needs. When we love our neighbor, we ought to love them wholly – we ought to meet physical needs AND spiritual needs.

• “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”
  • What does “perfect” mean?
    • The translation comes from the Greek word “telos”, which can be understood as “complete”, “mature”, or “fully developed”. Jesus is remarking that we ought to be mature rather than immature – for example, we ought to be like mature adults, rather than like immature children.
  • We are to be complete in our love for unbelievers in the same way that God shows His kindness and love for them. This is a call for Jesus’ followers to be complete and comprehensive in their love for everybody – not just toward the brethren or those who reciprocate love. We ought to be gracious to everybody, including unbelievers. As Christians, we must not exercise an “us vs. them” mentality.
    • God is not selective or exclusive, but generous toward everybody
  • If we take it to mean perfect holiness, then we arrive at some difficulties
    • If the word “perfect” were to be interpreted and understood as “flawless” or “without error”, it would mean that none of us could ever reach the absolute perfection and holiness of God, and we therefore would never be able to fulfill Jesus’ direction.
    • Also, some things that we must obey in order to be perfectly holy do not really apply to God. For example, if we are to be perfect, we must be free from lust, abstain from divorce & remarriage, etc. But none of these apply to God Himself. There are also authorized acts of God that we cannot perfectly emulate as finite, limited creatures. Therefore, it would be a stretch to consider Jesus’ command to be perfect as a call to emulate God’s nature and behavior exactly in order to meet God’s standard of righteousness.
  • The Scriptures still teach that God is holy and we fall short of His glory (Romans 3:23), but this verse in Matthew may not be the most appropriate to use in affirming this truth. We should exercise caution when applying this verse to mean all men are condemned if they cannot attain to the standard of perfect sinlessness in this life. However, we can use this verse to demonstrate to someone that they fall short of the perfect love of God that He has for everybody.

DEVELOPING PROPOSITIONS

We spent the rest of our time practicing the development of propositions. Pastor Dan selected a chapter in the New Testament, and we spent a few minutes developing propositions independently. Afterward, we shared our propositions with the larger group.

Mark 2

• Jesus has authority to forgive sins
• Jesus rewards those who seek Him in faith
• Jesus knows the thoughts of our hearts
• Jesus is God and has equal authority to perform miracles and forgive sins
• People follow Jesus and want to hear His every word
• The healing of the paralytic was unique and something people had never seen before
• Jesus is God
• Jesus sees faith

1 Corinthians 1

• No man can boast before God in and of himself alone
  • God used the unexpected things of the world to nullify the boasting of men before God
• We are enriched in all things through Christ
• Jesus will confirm us as blameless to the end
• God is faithful
• Christians should have no divisions amongst them; instead, they should be of the same mind and judgment
• The word of the cross (the gospel) is the power of God for those who are being saved
• The gospel equalizes all Christians
• The wisdom of God is greater than the wisdom of man
• Christians can boast in the Lord only
• Paul encouraged unity among God’s people
  • How do we encourage unity?
    • Engage with one another
    • Celebrate diversity of viewpoints but have them rooted in Christ
    • Have intentional conversations with one another

Men's Workout #7 - June 17th

In today’s workout, we were joined by Pastor Dan’s friend from LA – Pastor Mike and Pastor Mike’s son, Micaiah. We dove straight into leading devotions, with the same structure of praise, reading of Scripture, propositional statements and application. During devotions, Pastor Dan also encouraged us to not always hunt for the main point of the passage, since that could be more difficult depending on the passage. However, there will always be obvious truths that we can reflect on.

LEADING DEVOTIONS

James lead the first devotion.

• Hymn 176 – Be Thou My Vision
• Passage: 2 Timothy 1:1-12
• Observed propositional statements and accompanying application / reflection:
  • Paul encourages Timothy to be a faithful minister. Timothy had a spirit of timidity, for men it can be a struggle. However, God didn’t give us a spirit of timidity, but of power, love and discipline. It is good for us to be that kind of men.
  • Gospel is worth suffering for. This occurred throughout church history. This is the reality for us, that we will suffer for the Gospel. We must be courageous and be willing to lay down our lives for His Word.

Ming led the second devotion.

• Hymn 162 – Wonderful, Merciful Savior (note that we have replaced “embrace” with “obey” in the second verse)
• Passage: 1 John 2:1-5
• Observed propositional statements and accompanying application / reflection:
  • Encouragement to not sin, Jesus Christ is the Advocate who can plead our case to the Father. When we sin, we still have an Advocate.
• We also covered the meaning of propitiation – appeasement of God’s wrath. This is what was achieved through Jesus’ work on the cross.
• Additionally, we discussed the delineation of “not for ours only” and “the whole world.” God’s mercy in Christ is enough even for the whole world. There’s no one who can say, “I’ve sinned so much, I can’t be saved.”
• Pastor Mike then asked us to walk through how we would explain this to kids. The group discussion as follows:
  • Definition of sin: God has a standard as defined in His commandments. Anything that goes against God’s commandments is sin.
  • Expectation of obedience: God expects us to not sin (disobey God’s commands).
  • Penalty for sin: When we sin, there are consequences of that sin – a penalty is required.
  • Substitution of penalty: Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin on the cross. His sacrifice in our place is the only way to be saved from the penalty for our sin.
• Pastor Dan also related a personal story – that kids will sometimes feel the weight of their sin, and as parents, we need to explain to them that Jesus sacrifice is big enough to cover their sins.

Nick led the third devotion.

• Hymn 154 – Oh the Deep, Deep Love
• Passage: Mark 1:1-20
• Observed propositional statements and accompanying application / reflection:
  • Connection between repenting and the forgiveness of sins, repentance and belief going hand in hand. One cannot follow Christ until they leave something. These men aren’t just following Christ physically, but leaving a different master for Christ as the new master.
• Pastor Dan encouraged us to look for obvious truths, as identifying the main point can be a real challenge (often requires an in depth study). For example, Jesus is greater than John is an obvious truth in the text. And we can then reflect on this by asking ourselves: Is Jesus greater than me? My boss? Someone I look up to in history and want to imitate?
• Other observations:
  • Jesus is God’s beloved Son.
  • Repentance is tied to the forgiveness of sin.
  • John looked funny and ate funny food.
  • A lot of people went into the wilderness to listen to John.

MEMORIZATION

We didn’t have time to recite last week’s passage, but we did walk through the crux of each of the antitheses of Matthew 5:

• 5:21-26 Christians are peacemakers.
• 5:27-30 Christians are pure.
• 5:32-32 Christians don’t divorce.
• 5:33-37 Christians speak truth. Main contention is speaking truth. Pharisees took oaths because their words couldn’t trusted.
• 5:38-42 Christians don’t take vengeance or demand restitution. In the words of Paul, why not rather be defrauded, why not be wronged?

Men's Workout #6 - June 10th

Pastor Dan started us off with a devotion through Galatians 1.

• The gospel must be guarded and protected. This chapter (letter) helps puts into perspective how important the gospel is. Anything that takes away from the truth of the gospel is a false gospel. If we buckle on the foundation of the gospel, then we’ve lost it!
• The gospel is powerful to save. It even saved a man like Paul, who greatly persecuted the church and killed many in the faith.
  • Sometimes we may think that some people are impossible to save, but we should not think this way! If we do, we discredit the saving power of the gospel.

MEMORY VERSES

This week we recited Matthew 5:27-32 together and entered into a time of discussion through this passage.

• In verse 32, why does Jesus say that only the woman being divorced commits adultery?
  • Jesus already explained in verse 5:28 that the man has already committed adultery in his heart.
  • What the Pharisees were teaching and practicing was that a man could divorce anyone he wanted for any reason (even for burning his breakfast!); he just had to follow the formalities of the law given by Moses (Deuteronomy 24).
  • In those days, adulterers were guilty of capital punishment (i.e. stoning), but under Roman law, they were not freely able to execute people as they would if they were exclusively under Jewish law.
    • As a result, the culture became desensitized to the seriousness of the sin of adultery. This encouraged the Pharisees to freely divorce their wives for the purpose of marrying other women they desired instead.
    • But Jesus explains that the one who makes his wife commit adultery is then to be considered the worse of the two parties, as he not only already committed adultery, but also is the cause of sin committed among all of the people involved.
  • Futhermore, Jesus teaches that there is absolutely no cause for divorce except for the the reason of unchastity (immorality). So except for this one reason, divorce is never an option for a Christian.
    • This should give us a resolve to always seek to work out issues that arise within our marriages!
• It is essential to create hedges to help guard our hearts, our purity, and our marriages.
  • The right eye and hand were considered the dominant of their pairs of body parts, and thus considered the most valuable.
  • The issue of and struggle against purity doesn’t begin when something lewd flashes before our eyes – it begins in our minds!
  • Setting hedges is critical and practical to preclude and protect ourselves from the potential for adultery.
    • However, setting hedges (physical, situational, etc.) is not adequate to protect ourselves from sin. What God wants for us is to have pure hearts.
    • Fill your mind with God’s truth and His holiness. This sanctifies our minds and leaves no room for straying, sinful thoughts.
• It is interesting that Jesus brings up the matter of hell in this passage. Why does He bring it up?
  • Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount by speaking to His disciples, but ends up preaching to large crowds.
  • Ultimately, the point Jesus is driving across in all of the points in His sermon is that everyone needs repentance and faith in order to escape hell and punishment for sins.

Next week’s passage for memorization is Matthew 5:33-42.

MINISTRY FORUM

• Rotation for watching children during Homegroups
  • Organizing a structured, separate activity for the children during the last homegroup was a success and an encouragement for the body. Therefore, we will continue breaking up into separate groups for children and adults during homegroups. A volunteer rotation was set up for leading and monitoring the children during the large group discussions.

Men's Workout #5 - June 3rd

Pastor Dan kicked off our fifth workout session with a devotional through the book of Philemon.

• A clear theme in this letter as explained by Paul is that Christians forgive. Even though Philemon was betrayed by Onesimus, his slave who left him at some point in the past, Paul appeals to him to forgive him – not by compulsion, but by his own free free will.
• As Christians, we forgive because:
  • We want to forgive;
  • We are commanded to forgive;
  • God forgave us;
  • Forgiveness is a demonstration of basic Christian love.
• The letter to Philemon reminds us always to have a heart of forgiveness, despite whatever offenses we may consider to have been committed against us.
• Brotherhood is not just an idea; it is a reality
  • Even though Onesimus is legally still Philemon’s slave, Philemon should still treat Onesimus as his brother in Christ.
  • This letter reminds us that love does not keep a record of wrongs committed.

MEMORY VERSES

This week we recited Matthew 5:21-26 together and went into an extended time of discussing the passage and asking questions.

• In verse 25, who is the opponent at law?
  • Jesus explains His point with an example of litigation. The opponent at law can be a believer or a non believer.
  • Jesus’ exhortation is to resolve disputes and make peace with your “opponent” without relying or going to the court systems. The emphasis is that Christians are to be peacemakers.
  • Go above and beyond and out of your way to make peace with others — be the initiator of peacemaking!
• How far should we take an application of verses 23-24? How do we carry out the principles of peacemaking? For example, should we avoid attending corporate gatherings until we make peace with our brother?
  • The main point of application is to deal with your anger, take initiative, and resolve conflicts and issues with others quickly.
  • Sometimes we can forgive by just letting the issue go. Love covers a multitude of sins. Whether we are the offender or the offended, as Christians we are to be people who seek and make peace with others.
• Another example: what if we have an argument with our wives before Sunday worship? Should we deal with it right then and there, even if it means we miss part of or the entire worship service?
  • The best thing to do with brethren is to establish a relationship where you can say to each other, “we have to sort things out, but let’s just start with forgiving each other, and we can carry on with what we need to do. We can have a conversation about this later. If there is a need for forgiveness, we are already in a place in our relationship where we will forgive each other. I will always forgive you; there’s nothing you can do to me that is so grave that I cannot cover it with love and not forgive you.”
    • Having this attitude prevents the temptation to have to put on a fake smile in front of others, as if everything were perfectly fine and you didn’t just have a heated argument with your spouse!
    • Of course, we should actually follow with with the promise of resolving the issue later!
• What if we don’t remember our conflicts with other brethren before presenting our offering to God?
  • Our offerings and worship to God will always be substandard and imperfect. Despite this, God accepts our worship with mercy and grace. It doesn’t make it okay if we don’t remember to confess our sins and make peace with others, but we should do as much as we can to make amends with our brethren, inasmuch as it depends on us and if it is possible (Romans 12:18).

Next week’s passage for memorization is Matthew 5:27-32. The theme here is that “Christians are pure.”

• The Lord has a high standard of righteousness.
• The context of the passage is that Jewish men would freely divorce their wives in order to marry other women they desired, thus avoiding public labels as adulterers. But Jesus says that “everyone who looks at a women with lust for her  has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
• We need to put a hedge against physical and emotional temptations.
  • “Tearing out the right eye and cutting off the right hand”
    • The right eye and hand were considered as the more dominant of the matching parts of the body
    • These are extreme examples that tell us to take extreme measures to deal with temptations and lusts
    • Romans 13:14 tells us to “make no provisions for the flesh in regards to its lusts”
    • The way to battle struggles in the mind is to replace those struggles with the right things (like the truths and commands of Scripture!)

LEADING DEVOTIONS

Daniel Khuc led the devotion for this week.

• Hymn #129 – “Crown Him With Many Crowns”
• Daniel led us in a devotion through Revelation 1:7-11.
  • Verse 8 – God describes Himself as the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who was, is, and is to come.
    • From this we know that God is eternal; God is the source of all things.
      • Often we are concerned with ourselves, our own existence, and our own thoughts. But we are part of God’s plan, which has existed before us, and will be completed by Him.
      • This reminds us that we are to be humble, and not inflate our own self-importance.
      • Like we sang in the hymn, we ought to attribute honor and authority unto God. He has the ultimate authority.
      • All will see Him when He returns, even those who pierced Him! The reality is that the Lord IS returning one day. This helps us put all of life and the way we ought to live it in the proper perspective.