Strong Man's Weakness

We have been talking about some gross and weird things in the Bible. We have been studying them because they are fun, but also because God must have put them in the Bible for a reason. The Bible is God’s word to us and all of it—even the weird parts—is important.

We started out by looking at God’s holiness and then expanded that by discussing how we can’t be holy if we don’t respect our parents and those in authority over us. In this session we studied the life of Samson to see how strange it was. We also looked at how Samson lived disregarding God’s call to live a holy life and paid the penalty for it.

First we divided the group into teams of 2 or 3. We passed out the team assignments and, using a Bible and a pen, the groups were each asked to complete their assignments (which were different questions based on the life of Samson in Judges 13-16).  The teams had 8-10 minutes to finish their assignments. After they finished, we called on the teams in order and asked them the questions on their sheet. By the end, everyone had a quick but pretty complete overview of the life of Samson.

As you can see, Samson was a man who was driven by his passions. He let his emotions and immediate pleasures control his life. He was a sucker for pretty women and they eventually led to his downfall. Samson didn’t pursue God’s holiness and because of that he never lead the Israelites to freedom from the Philistines. That is, of course, until at the end of his life when God listened to his prayer and used him to liberate the Israelites from the Philistines.

Most teenagers (most people actually) live their lives like Samson. They are controlled by their emotions and live life for the moment rather than following the ways of God. Because of this they often end up hurting or broken and wondering if they can still be used by God. The story of Samson shows that God can use anyone, and that He is a God who offers second chances.

We had a great time of discussion then.

• What would you see as some lessons for your life that you can learn from this story? (Stop and think before you act. Don’t take God’s gifts for granted, etc...)
• What can you take home and do differently this week because you looked at the life of Samson? ("I will make an effort to control my emotions.""I will give God credit for the blessings in my life." "I will ask God for strength to stay away from places I know I shouldn't go.")
• Do you think that most of the time you control your emotions or they control you?
• Have you ever acted out of your desire for immediate pleasure or out of your emotions and gotten in trouble for it?

You are powerful. You have the spirit of the living God inside of you, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that God gives to you. The question is are you going to use that power to help change the world or are you just going to be controlled by your whims and immediate desires like Samson? What will be your choice this week?

For our object lesson, we used a magnet, a piece of iron labeled sin, and several large nails.  Magnets are like people.  My magnet is strong and attracts anything made from iron.  It can easily lift these large nails.  It reminds us of how our lives change when Jesus comes into our hearts.  He makes us clean inside so that we want to love and serve Him.  And this attracts other people to Jesus.

Samson had great strength and when the Philistine enemies of Israel captured him on several occasions, he was able to overcome them easily.  His strength came from God and if he had been wise, he would have realized that God could only work through him while he lived a clean and pure life that would honor God every day.

However, there came a time when sin came into his life.  It's like taking this piece of iron labelled "SIN" and putting it over the ends of the magnet.  Now the magnet has lost its strength and can't pick up the nails anymore.

One day Samson sinned by telling Delilah that his strength lay in keeping his hair long and uncut.  She was delighted and had a man shave off all his hair while he lay asleep.  On waking, Samson didn't know that the strength God had given him was gone.  The Philistines jumped out of hiding and grabbed Samson and easily overpowered him.  They blinded him and then bound him with bronze chains and made him their slave!

Just as my magnet is now powerless to do the things it once did, Samson could no longer do the great deeds he once did.  It's the same with us today.  We need to pray to Jesus each day and trust Him to lead, guide and strengthen us, so that we can keep sin out of our lives.   And then we will be able to serve God and do great things for Him.   But, if we allow sin to come into our lives, we will become too weak and powerless to serve God!

Great visual!  And, as customary, we ended with a little humor and a YouTube.  This one by Tim Hawkins, who so eloquently (NOT!) tells his version of the Samson and Delilah story through song.

Death by Dishonor

We are taking a look at some of the strange things in the Bible and seeing what we can learn from them.  If we say that we believe that the Bible is the word of God then we have to assume that everything that we
find there is important.  That means that even the strange stuff, the hard to understand stuff, is important.  This week we looked at two stories and a few rules from God and saw what truths we could learn from them and possibly get another look into the person of God.

Of course, to kick off our first story, we had to watch a music video by Ray Stevens to get us in the mood.

The Streak

Yes, we started with Naked Noah and read Genesis 9:18-29.  Then we discussed the story with the kids.  So what’s happening here in this story?  What was wrong about the actions of the younger son?  What was right about the actions of the older sons?  What was wrong about the actions of Noah?  Did Noah's actions change the way that the older sons responded?  Why do you think that Noah responded so harshly to the
younger son’s actions?  What do you think we can learn from this for our lives?

The Bible stresses the importance of obeying your parents and having respect for those who are in authority over you.  That is why this is such a neat story.  The guy that God has chosen to be the head of the new world gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent. This isn’t the picture of the Bible hero that most people think of when they think of Noah.  But even though he messed up, he chastises his son for not treating him with respect.  In the same way we should always treat our parents with respect, even when they are doing things that are wrong.

Next, we moved on to Elisha being made fun of for being bald.  We not only read 2 Kings 2:23-24, but we also had the youth act out a skit to demonstrate what happened in this story...bald jokes and and bad humor added for emphasis of course.  What is the taunt of him?  What are they saying by speaking about his bald head?  Do you think this curse of Elisha to be a little harsh?  Do you think the youth who escaped ever made fun of bald people again?

These youth treated Elisha with contempt because of his age.  Once again, we see God treating this as a very big deal.  So the question you have to ask yourself is do you treat this as a big deal?  Do you think that being disrespectful to your parents or to your elders is something that warrants harsh punishment?

We played the Messy Hair Game then to get the blood pumping and the ants out of pants.  We put shower caps on three of the kids and let the others use shaving cream and their hands to create a crazy hairstyle for each youth.

But back to all seriousness.  What about the price of dishonor?  We started talking about respecting parents.  Most teenagers will just roll their eyes and mutter about how their parents “just don’t get it” or something similar.  To badmouth your parents is common for teens (in this world).  But it is against God’s plan.  We looked at some of God's punishment for rebellious children in the Old Testament.

We read Deuteronomy 21:18-21.  What is a parent to do if they have a rebellious son?  What is the punishment for being a rebellious son?  Do you think that is justified?  Death because you don’t listen to your parents is a pretty harsh sentence.  But again, we find that God is teaching something here.  He is teaching about more than just being nice to your parents.  He is teaching about himself.  Our parents are a reflection of God here on earth.  That is why God set up the family so that we could understand Him better.  That is also why He thinks it is so important for us to treat our parents with respect.

What about kids who have bad parents...parents who at the very least don’t believe in God or who don’t follow Him? What are they supposed to do?  Keep on respecting them!  Why? Because you are commanded to and because God honors those who follow His commands.  Honor Your Father and Mother (Exodus 20:12).  What are we commanded to do?  Why does the Bible say that you should honor your parents?  What does “honoring” your parents look like?

Honoring your parents is more than just being nice to them and not yelling at them.  It is about living in such a way as to bring them honor.  When people look at your life, when they see the way you act, the way that you live does that bring honor to your father and mother? Do you treat them with respect when you are with them and do you live in such a way to bring them honor when they are not around?

We watched a YouTube about David Nasser then.  In it Nasser talks about the reaction of his Muslim family on the night that he was being baptized as a Christian.  Instead of bragging about his bravery, Nasser speaks about how he wishes that instead of just walking out the door he would have honored his father and stayed home like he was told to do.

David Nasser

We closed with a discussion, asking them some questions and requiring total honesty from them.  So what about you?  Do you live in a way that is honoring to your parents?  Do you treat your elders with respect?  God may not be sending any bears your way, but I do know that you are called to live with respect towards your elders and if you do then you are living how God intends for you to live.

We passed out an “Honor Meter” test then and asked the students to work on them silently for a few minutes.  After they had a minute or two to fill them out, we talked through each statement. A sample of one of the statements is, "I speak to my parents in a respectful tone, even when they are yelling at me."  "I treat my parents with honor when in public.  If I have a disagreement with them, I speak to them calmly and privately."  Needless to say, there was lots of conviction in the room!

Great and practical lesson!

2013 TT 4th of July Parade!!!

It was hot and it was a long walk, but we had a blast walking again this year in Temple Terrace's 4th of July parade.  We handed out candy and Life Books and shared the love of Christ with everyone we encountered.