Purity and Bungee Cords

Below we talked about compromise and that compromised relationships are the first step in the process of compromise. Well if any relationship opens the door to connection to someone else it's a sexual relationship. We've got two major truths we are dealing with when it comes to sexual purity.

When you connect with someone sexually, you are instantaneously connected to them emotionally, mentally and spiritually!

Rubber bands are cool! They can move and bend and stretch in all sorts of weird cool ways, but they always will return to their original length. Bungee cords are basically just hundreds of rubber bands bound together. When you connect with someone sexually it's as if you have tied a bungee cord around each of your waists and then tried to go on your merry way, after the sexual act. But all of a sudden your emotions, some of your mental capacity, and your spirit are tied to that person.

Let's illustrate this! It could be years since you connected with someone sexually. Maybe it was high school, maybe it was college. But years later you are driving down the road and that certain song comes on the radio. Out of no where those emotions of connection that were established come flooding back. Or let's say you thumbing through an old yearbook and you see the picture of that person. Now out of no where, you have some mental images invading your brain of things you've engaged in with that person. It's like the bungee of your emotions and mental images have been snapped back into place because of the sexual connection.

Spiritual connection with a person is even more complex and really only makes sense in terms of understanding that you as a believer in Christ are tied with a spiritual bungee cord to Jesus. If you connect sexually with someone outside of a marriage relationship, in a weird way even if that other person is a believer too, they are spiritually pulling you away from Christ.

The cool thing about being tied sexually and then emotionally, mentally and spiritually to a person is when their is a life long commitment. This truth that sexual connection instantaneous connects two people emotionally, mentally, and spiritually all of a sudden is an awesome thing, because now instead of guilt and doubt and disrespect, there's security and interdependence.

This truth about sexuality is why Paul wrote this in First Corinthians 6:18: "Flee sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside the body, but he who sins sexually, sins against his own body." Sexual sins cuts deep and forever.

Yes there's forgiveness, yes there's grace. But anybody that has compromised sexually will tell you that this truth about sexual connection stands even in the midst of their forgiveness.

Sexual purity or sexual compromise is a physical picture of the spiritual truth that you belong to someone!

Take two sheets of construction paper and glue them together. Let them sit for a minute. We'll talk about the construction paper in a bit.

Paul keeps going in verse 19 and says this: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

Now let's skip down into chapter 7 and say something pretty significant. Verse 3-4 of chapter 7 says, "The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife.

You belong in a very real sense to Christ (if you are a believer) and to your husband or wife. And how you compromise sexually speaks volumes about how much you value Christ and your future or present spouse. Because in a very real sense when you connect with someone sexually you are giving away a part of your self that now belongs to that person. If you don't believe me take the construction paper now and try to pull them apart.

Little bits of each piece of paper have bonded to the other one and torn away. When you connect sexually, you are meant to stay together because it's just too stinking hard to pull you apart without leaving little pieces of yourself behind.

If you hear this message, I'll end it with a story that'll drive these two points home.

Compromise: Giving Away What's Not Yours

Just an overview! If you want all the sermon notes then feel free to email me.

Definition of Compromise
Compromise is when two parties that have different agendas needs or wants each give up a part agendas, agendas, needs or wants so that they can meet in the middle in the middle and find common ground. This is awesome when you are teaching kids to share their toys. But it is a huge deal for students faced with compromising their faith, spirituality, or morals.

Here's why for the believer in Christ compromise is a hug deal; because when a believer compromises, he's giving away something that is not his. He's giving away, exchanging and compromising the truth of God. Let's diagram this so it makes more sense. We'll show the two parties that are at issue here and actually what the believer is giving away.

The World ---(Compromise to meet in the middle)- --Believer in Jesus

Giving Away God's Truth

What we have to compromise to meet in the middle is at the heart of the issue. We have to give away the truth that we verbalize and live out, that Jesus is the one true God in flesh and that he is it for us. And that truth of God is not ours to give away as a bargaining chip.

Do you see what compromise in the life of a believer in Jesus really means?

Romans One

Everybody pounces on Romans one as a condemnation of homosexuality. It's really about compromise. It's just of this particular group of people, when they compromised the truth of God, it lead to homosexuality. Check out these verses below and the use of the word "exchanged". You could just as easily throw "compromise" in these verses in place of "exchanged".

Verses 18-21 describes a group of people that were opposed to God. I'm not going to get into particulars about these folks, Let's check out the next few verses though to see their real issue.
22 "Although they claimed to be wise they became fools 23 and exchanged (compromised) the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man..." ...25 "They exchanged (compromised) the truth of God for a lie..." And then again in verse 26 we see the word exchanged. Three times we see that this group of people exchanged or compromised the truth for a lie.

Let's check out the process of compromise that probably happened with these guys and definitely happens with us today.

The Process or Progression of Compromise

Remember that compromise is giving away something that doesn't belong to us; the truth of God in Jesus. And that doesn't happen all at once. It's a process or progression. It usually happens in three steps.

Compromised Relationships: In the lives of student's I've always see it start with who they hang with. I've said it till I'm blue in the face; who you hang with, is who you'll look like.

Compromised Behaviors:Behaviors are born out of relationships. That's why you can take a kid that grew up in church, get the cool kids to invite him to a drinking party, and even though he doesn't drink and believes it's wrong, he's going to be trashed by the end of the night.

Compromised Beliefs: In spite of what would seem logical this really is the last step. Over time the kid that keeps getting invited to the drinking party is going to have to deal with the conflict between his behaviors and beliefs. Psychologists call this adaptation. There's a vs. (verses but versus) situation between that kids behaviors and beliefs that's got to be rectified.

The further you get in the progression the harder it is to back out of the progression. By the time you get the compromised beliefs, it takes some major divine intervention to reverse the progression.

Then to end the message (for those that are interested) we talked about my friend stuck in the doorway halfway through the progression. Put yourself in the doorway and be aware of where you are in the progression.

I hope this little tool helps our Community Group Leaders and some of our parent's as you guys do some home devotionals.

Dennis

Summit Resource

I'm going to give using this blog as a resource to our youth ministry a go. And here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to produce a series of articles here that will match up with this semester's Wednesday night teachings. The point of these articles is to provide in one place a teaching resource for our Community Group Leaders, parents and student leadership.

When this blog is updated for CG leaders and others I'll notify you guys with a general email to Summit youth and parents.

All the teachings this semester are based on "Compromise". Here's the overview in case you've missed it.

• Compromise: Giving Away What's not yours
  
• Purity and Bungee Cords
  
• Modesty Reflects
• Reputation: Video, Not Picture
• Christ Heart, My Hands

Dennis

Focus... on the water, and in the church

Bridal Veil and Focus
Bridal Veil Rapid is one of the funnest rapids in Tallulah Gorge. It's about a 40 foot waterfall slide. It's class V because of the hydraulic at the bottom. This is a keeper hydraulic that could one day be fatal for somebody. It's eating water back into itself from about 10 or 15 feet out from the fold. Getting out if you got in there would be very very hard. The irony is that it's a super EASY rapid to run. You only goal really is to keep a left angle on your boat to punch the very left of the hole and keep paddling all the way left out at the bottom.

From the top river left eddy, you can't see the drop in your boat because it's such a steep drop. All you can really see are some distant trees on the left bank and the start of the next rapid some 50 yards downstream. So my friends Ben and Wes told me, "You see that poplar tree on the left bank that's leaning to the left? All you want to do is aim for that. The drop is easy, consequences severe if missed. Just keep you boat aimed to that tree."

Focus!!! Don't look at the hole at the very top. Enjoy the roostertail on the way down but don't let it throw you or distract you. The keeper hydraulic at the bottom will beckon to you. Don't let it hold you attention. Don't let it intimidate you and get you off your line. Just keep paddling toward your goal. Don't let anything else eat you attention from that goal and purpose! Aim for the tree and keep paddling!

Bridal Veil more than alot of rapids epitomizes this idea of focus. There really is only ONE GOAL with Bridal Veil. STAY LEFT!!! Alot of rapids can be broken down into multiple moves with multiple lines and different steps in getting to the bottom. Boof the pourover, hit the eddy, peel out and ferry past the wave train, drive right and boof again! Not Bridal Veil! Drive left... That's it!

With so many things that seem to get complicated and take the simplicity out of everything, I really appreciate the lesson of Bridal Veil. Now let's look ahead at church.

Church and Focus

Several different teaching elements lately have converged in my life to teach me about focus. The book "Simple Church" by Rainer and Geiger, some teaching by Andy Stanley, and some good conversations with Craig Gentry have come together with thinking about Bridal Veil to drive the point home.

On Wednesday night, Summit has one job! Make disciples! Too vague? OK. Let's focus this statement into something managable for everybody. Here is what we have: Community Groups meeting with leaders on the second and third Wednesday nights of the month. The other night two nights of the month we will generally have a speaker focused on whatever teaching element we are going through.

Here's our focus! It's the focus of the speakers, the focus of the worship band, the focus of our student leaders involved in the program, and the focus of our Community Group leaders. To involve the students in the community groups in an open honest discussion about spiritual things and how they relate to their life. That's the tree we are aiming for! That's the bottom of Bridal Veil for us: To involve the students in the community groups in an open and honest discussion about spiritual things and how they relate to their life.

So, CG leaders, we've done our training, we've gone over to some degree the teaching focus for the semester. But my question to you is this: Do you know the tree your aiming for? Is anything else pulling your line from that path on Wednesday nights? Are there other great things we could be doing on Wednesday nights? How about serving other? What about mentoring of younger students by older students? How about digging into some memorization techniques of the Bible? All great things. But they are not our focus on Wednesday nights in Summit. Those will take us off line and maybe into the keeper hydraulic. Those are not our tree.

Our tree, your tree, the tree we' are aiming for on Wednesday nights that will get us to the bottom of the rapid is to involve students in the community groups in an open and honest discussion about spiritual things and how they relate to their life.

"Compromise" is on the plate for January. Let's have some incredible Community Groups!

Dennis

Christmas and Germs

Yep that's right germs! Parker's nose has been running like a freight train (no fever though)... Mac on the other hand spiked a 103 on the thermometer... Deidre and I both have the runny nose, stuffy headed goodness... and Emma-Claire has staph (scary word) on the inside of her leg where her diaper has rubbed against it. Suffice it to say that Doctor Kahn felt horrible for us and sent us home to eat ice cream.

She told Deidre and I to drink plenty of fluids, gave us some cream to fight the infection on Emma-Claire's leg which was already diminishing anyway, tested Mac for strep and the flu (negative on both, so just give him tylenol and let it run it's course), and try to keep Parker happy... Wow what a Christmas! I am looking forward to going to the Christmas dinner at church tonight with Parker though!

We did get our kid's Christmas pictures done!

www.thesummityouth.org

Check out what Trey Greer has put together for Summit Youth. I'm so glad God let's Trey use what he knows to serve us. For those of you that missed it in the title, that's www.thesummityouth.org There's a link to the right on this blog. Be sure and put it in your favorites as well and check back often.

Dennis

High Water at Amicalola

Emma-Claire finally was sleeping on Thursday and Deidre told me to leave the house for a while and let her sleep. Knowing that it had been raining like cats and dogs, I took the short trip over to Amicalola Creek. Looking at the online gauge it looked like it topped out early that morning around 1.7 (pretty respectable). I knew at that level the playspot above the bridge would have some great waves to surf behind the main hydraulic. Below are some pictures from earlier in the summer at about the same level. The first one is me surfing in the hydraulic. Above about 1.3 the cant eddy into it... you have to start above the rapid and run it backwards and catch the surf on the fly (very worth it) because the eddy that would give service to this feature gets pushed downstream. The other picture is actually the better reason to go there when it hits above 1.5 on the online gauge. There are two to three beautiful glassy waves with perfect troughs that develop behind the main hole. And the eddy that usually feeds the main hole gives PERFECT accessibility to these waves. These waves, to varying degrees, are unbelievable surfing up to about 2.5???































On the trip with my brother-in-law Chris, we decided that if rain was consistent and this watershed could actually hold onto some water instead of spiking like it does in this drought, this could be one of the best playspots in North Georgia. I mean these are actual WAVES and not just surging hydraulics... and I had always rather surf something glassy than foamy. Let's see what weather patterns do over the next few years and we'll see if we could be right.



































I really had some fun surfing on Thursday! The other thing that was really fun on Thursday was paddling down to "Edge of the World". Between 1.2 (maybe) and 2.???? this double drop, (or triple drop, depending on how you count) is class IV. The highest I've run it was maybe 1.3. So I wanted to check it out and see what was going on.

I was BLOWN AWAY when I paddled past the bridge gauge though. When I put on a couple of hours earlier, it read 1.7. Now the river had flashed to 2.3 in just an hour and a half! I quickly did a little math in my head:

Creek Boat = at home in my garage
smaller playboat that surfs awesome, but has issues in bigger water = under me
Edge of the World at 2.3 = if ran today with no paddling partners, would likely eat my lunch!

I still wanted to check it out at this level and decide when I got down there though. So I headed downstream. Here are some pictures of "Edge" at about 1.8-2.0 to give you some perspective.
This picture above shows the classic line for the first drop.





















What I usually do is drop in clean headed river left over the pourover in the left of the picture. Your goal is to hit the far river left eddy right above this undercut (wow that's a little scary, going under there couldn't be fun). Now take a look below at the boat breaker rock covered up with water....




















This is right below the undercut rock. You can see the bottom of the undercut in the upper right of the picture above. So from the river left eddy you need to ferry from river left, above the undercut, above the boat breaker drop, all the way river right to...

...the last drop (that I don't have a picture of). It is to the far river right of what you see above. At normal levels it's a beautiful 4 foot drop over a rock shelf. At 2-2.3 it is what made me walk away without running it on Thursday. The hydraulic that it was creating was MASSIVE. It was literally pulling water back into itself from a good 7-9 feet away from the drop. I couldn't see the far right side of the drop, but I thought that if it looked anywhere as mean as this side of the drop, I'd have some work to do to claw my way out if i got stuck in there. Again, playboat.... big hole... not happening. I kept telling myself that if I had my creekboat... or if I had some reliable partners for some safety... or if... if... if... Maybe when it rains again, we'll see.

Dennis