I Led Our Staff in a Discussion at our Growth Conference in Tijuana
I used Adobe Firefly to Generate this Image
There were 250 people in the room, so it was a bit challenging to lead a discussion, haha! But it was fun. I had them getting groups of three or four in their rows. I picked out three different passages from the Bible for them to read.
Psalm 104 (The Whole Thing!)
Luke 15:1-32 (The Stories of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Lost Sons)
James 1:1-18 (Focusing on vv. 17-18
And I created some questions to help them discuss each passage.
I finished by sharing about how God has been demonstrating His generosity to Kay Charlotte and me in this season of loss and grief. I got a bit teary-eyed and my voice choked up a bit, but I got through it. The session was recorded. You can listen to it here:
(50 mb mp4a file)
Note: The talk is translated because our staff speak both Spanish and English… So this might be an opportunity. Also, for whatever reason, the recording missed out on my first sentence.
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WANNA DO THE STUDY? Here are the Slides:
And Here are the discussion questions:
Read and discuss Psalm 104 with your friends. Here are some questions to help you get started:
What’s the overall message of this passage? How would you summarize it in a sentence?
How does this passage reveal God’s generosity? That is, how is God generous? What verses, phrases, or word choices show us what God’s generosity is like?
What’s a detail that sticks out to you in this passage?
Is there a human response to God’s generosity here? Does the passage give hints or clues or instructions to us?
What do you want to take from this and move forward with it?
Scriptures for Further Study:
Genesis 1-2
Matthew 6:26
Daniel 2:21
Proverbs 16:9
Philippians 4:19
Read and discuss Luke 15:1-32 with your friends. Here are some questions to help you get started:
How are these three stories related?
Who is in the audience?
What’s Jesus point? Can you summarize it in a sentence?
How do these stories show us God’s generosity?
Is there a phrase or verse that sticks out to you?
Is there an instruction or human response here?
What do you want to take from this and move forward with it?
Scriptures for Further Study:
Titus 3:5-6
Isaiah 55:7
Psalm 130:7-8
Hosea 2:19
John 10:11
John 3:16
Micah 7:19
Read and discuss James 1:1-18 with your friends. Here are some questions to help you get started:
Where do we see God’s generosity in these verses?
Have you experienced the generosity James is describing?
Is there a phrase or verse that sticks out to you?
What instructions or a proper human responses are found in this passage?
What will you take with you?
Scriptures for Further Study:
Psalm 145:9, 4, 7
Matthew 7:11
Psalm 145:16
Psalm 14:1
Psalm 107:31
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Here’s What I Said about God’s Generosity in Suffering:
In this world, you will have trouble.
Take heart, I have overcome the world.
—Jesus
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We can expect trials of many kinds in our lives. And we know God comforts us in all our troubles (2 Cor.1:4).We know that God is close to the brokenhearted. (Ps.34:18). We know that those who mourn are blessed, (Mat. 5:4). And I’m absolutely convinced that Jesus has been blessing us in our awful season. Isaiah saw Jesus in his imagination and he called Him a “man of sorrows”, (Isaiah 53:3). Certainly we can understand why He would be sorrowful. He was betrayed by a friend. He was beaten, cursed, punched, and whipped. He was crucified; His followers scattered. He was abandoned. He was thirsty. He was a Man of sorrows.
But I suppose it is so much more than even what He suffered in His human life. Since the Fall, God has contended with evil. He’s engaged with it, He’s limited it. He’s restrained the chaos. And He works with us — a resistant creation. We set our wills against His. And He has not withdrawn Himself from this evil or from us, His flawed creatures.
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Including Ukraine, there are more than 100 armed conflicts in the world. Hate and death and war are continual, and the most precious, beautiful, holy, and perfect Being continually subjects Himself to all this that is so against His nature. There is a kind of expensive generosity at work here. God remains present in the middle of all our sin and pain. Although He is not the cause of it, God takes responsibility for the evil in the world. And in doing so, He overcomes it through His suffering on the cross. (This is a paraphrase of G. Boyd “The Point of the Book of Job” on ReKnew October 16, 2018)
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I have thought of death as a tool in God’s hand. I thought it was a way for God to limit sin and its effects on us. And I suppose this is kind of true. God knows our beginning and our end, and the wise among us learn to number their days. But God is not a God with a stopwatch. He is not timing our lives, not counting down the seconds. He doesn’t shout, “TIME’S UP!”, and then turn out our lights.
God does allow death. It is a result of humanity eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is the result of our mistrust in His Word and of choosing our own version of what is right and wrong.
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And I’d like to think that there are only two forces at work, God’s generosity and my faith. And so in my case, who do I blame for my son Levi’s death? Did God fail me? Did I fail my son? Did I not pray enough? When I prayed, did my faith falter? Perhaps my view of reality is too simplified.
There is also chaos in God’s good creation. There is personified evil that actively resists God’s purposes. A being called the Prince of Persia delayed God’s message for Daniel. And human choices that don’t reflect His character happen continuously, producing evil results. Multiply this by the billions of us on earth, and my simple worldview is simply not enough to make sense of this.
The author, Nicholas Wolterstorff writes, “Death is shalom’s mortal enemy. Death is demonic. We cannot live at peace with death.” He goes on to write, “The Bible speaks of God overcoming death… God is appalled by death. My pain over my son’s death is shared by His pain over my son’s death. And, yes, I share in His pain over His Son’s death.”
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I asked God why my son had to die. I asked Him why He didn’t intervene. He could have snapped His fingers and Levi would have revived, and been made whole. Why not? We are YWAMers, we believe in miracles. Kay Charlotte and I try our best to live righteously, shouldn’t God have made a way for Levi to live?
I asked God, “Where were you?” And I saw the Lord. I saw Him in the passenger seat of Levi’s Subaru. Levi had just sat down in the driver’s seat, with a bag from WalMart and a sandwich from Subway. And that’s when he passed. He never even shut the car door. And that’s where the Lord was. He was not gone. He did not watch from a distance. He was with Levi. Right there. And He wept. He weeps with me, with us. This is how generous my God is. He enters into my worst day. He was present. And His adversary death came for my son, and God’s Son, the One who died in all our places, was there with him as he died. He didn’t withhold Himself from the cross; he didn’t withhold Himself from this moment either.
Oh, our generous God!
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