Youth Sunday School Lesson - November 1, 2009
During this quarter, we have been studying about making important spiritual choices and how they can affect our lives. We have been using examples from the Bible of others who made choices and we have learned how doing so changed their lives. Some of the choices were good (Daniel), some were bad (Adam), and some were somewhere in between (Martha). We should understand by this point that choices will always need to be made in our lives and it is up to us to use the wisdom we can gain from studying God’s Word to make our decisions valid and our judgment sound.
This week, we will cover the story of Peter in our class, and boy did he make a lot of choices! In one eight-hour period of his life he made several choices that ranged from very bad to very good. This should prove to us that we will never know when we will be called upon to make a choice; therefore we should always be prepared spiritually when called upon to do so.
Our story begins in Matthew 26, though it is mentioned in the other gospels as well. Jesus and his disciples were having the Passover dinner and during the meal Jesus tells them that they will all abandon Him very soon. He says that they will be ‘offended’ by Him. Peter immediately makes a choice to speak up and say that it will never happen, that “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended.” I believe that Peter meant this in his heart when he said it, but we should always be careful of what we say. We may think we are strong and that we will never stray from God, yet Paul warns us, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (I Corinthians 10:12) Peter thought he was strong – he had been following Jesus every day for three years! With his answer to Jesus, he is almost bragging about his spiritual courage and strength. To boast of your righteousness is never a wise choice, as we will find out later in the story.
During the night, Jesus is arrested and sure enough, the disciples all abandon Him - except for Peter. He makes a wise choice, sort of, because the Bible tells us that he followed them from ‘afar off’ to the place they were taking Jesus. Once there, while outside in a courtyard, we read that when asked about his relationship with Jesus, Peter denies that he knows Him three times. And the third time he begins cursing and swearing to those gathered around the fire. Obviously this is a bad choice. Peter could have fled with the other disciples. He could have remained silent when asked about his friendship with Jesus. The point is, he had other choices he could have made in this situation besides denying that he knew Jesus and swearing to prove his point. Would those choices have been better? We’ll talk about that in class on Sunday. In the meantime, please be thinking about it.
Just about the time Peter completes his outburst, he hears the rooster crow and sees Jesus looking at him as the soldiers are taking Jesus to the next court setting. Peter remembers bragging a few hours earlier and his heart breaks because he knows Jesus was right, but also because he is ashamed of how he has acted. The Bible says he left the courtyard, weeping (crying) bitterly. We read later that Peter repented and Jesus forgave him. Peter went on to work for the Lord and became a founder of the church, as Jesus also prophesied. The decision by Peter to repent is obviously a good choice. Sometimes we may fall in our Christian walk, but we should never give up. Jesus is ready to forgive us when we confess our failures to Him, and he will pick us up and put us back on the right path.
Peter made a lot of decisions during that night and early morning so very long ago. The Bible records these examples so that we can learn from them and possibly not make the same mistakes ourselves. We will always be called upon to make choices in our lives and some of those decisions will be spiritual choices. Sometimes we might have to make several decisions during a very short period of time. Using the examples provided to us by God’s Word will go along way towards preparing us to make the right choices when the time comes for us to do so.
Birthdays
Another year, another birthday, and it is good to be able to celebrate the date of your birth when you consider the alternative. But still, those days do not seem to mean as much now that I am older. The parties and gifts, the cake, the friends that met for a celebration when we were young seldom gather for the same as a person gets on up there in years.
I just re-read the above paragraph and I may be giving the wrong impression here – I am not lobbying for a birthday party! Quite the opposite: In many ways I would be pleased to see it pass as simply one more day on the calendar this year. Birthday parties are over-rated at my age. Come to think of it, in the Bible, there are only two ‘birthday parties’ mentioned at all and both ended in disaster. The first one recorded takes place in the book of Genesis in chapter 40, where Pharaoh’s birthday party concluded with the hanging of his chief butler from a tree. The second was a wild affair thrown to honor the birthday of Herod, as mentioned in the New Testament. It was during that raucous shin-dig that Herod’s own niece caught his eye with her dancing and demanded the head of John the Baptist as her reward.
Now, none of my birthday parties to this date have been that extreme; though I’ll admit there have been a few where things did not quite go as planned. These days I have a requirement to limit my sugar intake, and as far as gifts go I can think of nothing more important than simply having my family around me to acknowledge the event. When we all get together, and we will, there will be no make-shift gallows and the only head on a plate will most likely be my own.
A birthday should be a reminder - a yearly wake-up call to acknowledge that life is brief. Time flies and each day of our lives should be made to count as a result. It is hard to explain this phenomenon to a person in the midst of their youth, but the older we get the more we are able to grasp the concept of aging and of our own mortality. It stares back at us from the mirror each morning as we prepare for the day, and reminds us when we climb stairs or try to read the smaller print in a newspaper.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” James 4:14
We are not promised a tomorrow that may never find us living in it. We do have today. Therefore, it is our duty and our obligation to do the best we can each day by living the life that God would have us live. His love should show through from the place that He resides within our hearts in everything we say and do. Solomon said it much better than I will ever be able to do when he put it this way: “If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.”
Those are true words, indeed. They are also something worth considering not only on my birthday, but every day that God allows me to continue to live on this earth. I have work to do this year…
I just re-read the above paragraph and I may be giving the wrong impression here – I am not lobbying for a birthday party! Quite the opposite: In many ways I would be pleased to see it pass as simply one more day on the calendar this year. Birthday parties are over-rated at my age. Come to think of it, in the Bible, there are only two ‘birthday parties’ mentioned at all and both ended in disaster. The first one recorded takes place in the book of Genesis in chapter 40, where Pharaoh’s birthday party concluded with the hanging of his chief butler from a tree. The second was a wild affair thrown to honor the birthday of Herod, as mentioned in the New Testament. It was during that raucous shin-dig that Herod’s own niece caught his eye with her dancing and demanded the head of John the Baptist as her reward.
Now, none of my birthday parties to this date have been that extreme; though I’ll admit there have been a few where things did not quite go as planned. These days I have a requirement to limit my sugar intake, and as far as gifts go I can think of nothing more important than simply having my family around me to acknowledge the event. When we all get together, and we will, there will be no make-shift gallows and the only head on a plate will most likely be my own.
A birthday should be a reminder - a yearly wake-up call to acknowledge that life is brief. Time flies and each day of our lives should be made to count as a result. It is hard to explain this phenomenon to a person in the midst of their youth, but the older we get the more we are able to grasp the concept of aging and of our own mortality. It stares back at us from the mirror each morning as we prepare for the day, and reminds us when we climb stairs or try to read the smaller print in a newspaper.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” James 4:14
We are not promised a tomorrow that may never find us living in it. We do have today. Therefore, it is our duty and our obligation to do the best we can each day by living the life that God would have us live. His love should show through from the place that He resides within our hearts in everything we say and do. Solomon said it much better than I will ever be able to do when he put it this way: “If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.”
Those are true words, indeed. They are also something worth considering not only on my birthday, but every day that God allows me to continue to live on this earth. I have work to do this year…
Paths From Long Ago
Summer mornings were always incredible back then, especially if you were up early enough to do things before the heat of the day made its visit. Granny arrived in her old green car and a fishing trip had been planned between us. We got an early start; her car belching acrid blue smoke, on a morning that I was sure would last forever.
Across the road from our house was a small, country lane that led deep into the woods. I would later spend a lot of time there as I grew older, fishing and hanging out with my friends, but this was long before that time and I was a mere boy of eight or so. Granny weaved her car down the small, rut-strewn road, oblivious to the sound of tree branches inducing a scree-ee-ee sound on the sides of her car and leaving indelible scratches in the paint. As we drove deeper into the dense brush, the road narrowed further still, and finally reached a point where we had to dismount and continue on foot.
“Watch around those logs.” She would say, as the trail carried us down into a dense, brush-filled hollow, “Prolly a moccasin or two laid up under there.” I would instantly become of aware of the danger, despite being encumbered with trying to keep my fishing rod from becoming entangled in the thick branches overhead. Granny never seemed to mind and if she worried about snarling her own rod, she never acted as if she did so. Completing the traverse of the hollow, we ascended the next hill, and she would remind me again to “Watch those logs, ‘cause this is rattler country.” I never encountered a rattlesnake in that area, and still have not today, but I believed her all the same. That path brought home to me the meaning to the words of the psalmist as he uttered, “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.” Psalms 17:5
Gnats and horse-flies swarmed around my head, landing among the sweat drops that peppered my brow before buzzing off again, perturbed by my free hand that was constantly swatting at them. It was still early in the morning, but the heat was ramping up and the day promised to be a hot one. It is like that in the Deep South.
Finally, mercifully, the treacherous path opened onto the lake and our arrival at her fishing spot. The water was pristine, stilled as though a plate-glass covering had been placed upon it. With little or no fanfare we baited our hooks and began fishing. Granny cast out close to the bushes and remained stoic, almost taciturn as she watched her cork, never ceasing to amaze me with her uncanny ability to do so. Though I was young, I had learned not to test her patience by not providing at least a semblance of imitating her. Granny would not cotton to anyone casting bait next to her at more than a two to one ratio of her own casts. It scared the fish, she would explain. But she didn’t mind if you talked as long as it was in a low tone, and talk we did. I remember few if any of those conversations as that was a long time ago, but I am sure they were important - the things that we discussed.
I also remembered that if I strayed away from her a little, granny would hum or sing softly to herself. She never whistled tunes because that was unbecoming to a lady, and she reminded my sister on several occasions that ‘a whistling woman and a crowing hen, never did come to a very good end.’ But she would sing, and usually it was a hymn from church: Shall We Gather At The River or Count Your Many Blessings seemed to always be among her favorites.
It never took long to fill our strings with bass or bream because no catch was ever wasted with her. Fish I would be ashamed to admit I caught today were perfectly edible to her, and after all, that was what fishing was all about with granny. When the heat of the day came around, we would retrace our route up the worrisome path back to the car, and thence home to clean and cook our catch of the day.
Those were good times, the days I spent fishing with granny. Times that I muse about when today becomes hectic and my life becomes disheveled with adult problems and responsibilities. Maybe I could use a day in the deep woods, in an old car, following a delicate path that leads to a fishing hole as the preferred destination.
Across the road from our house was a small, country lane that led deep into the woods. I would later spend a lot of time there as I grew older, fishing and hanging out with my friends, but this was long before that time and I was a mere boy of eight or so. Granny weaved her car down the small, rut-strewn road, oblivious to the sound of tree branches inducing a scree-ee-ee sound on the sides of her car and leaving indelible scratches in the paint. As we drove deeper into the dense brush, the road narrowed further still, and finally reached a point where we had to dismount and continue on foot.
“Watch around those logs.” She would say, as the trail carried us down into a dense, brush-filled hollow, “Prolly a moccasin or two laid up under there.” I would instantly become of aware of the danger, despite being encumbered with trying to keep my fishing rod from becoming entangled in the thick branches overhead. Granny never seemed to mind and if she worried about snarling her own rod, she never acted as if she did so. Completing the traverse of the hollow, we ascended the next hill, and she would remind me again to “Watch those logs, ‘cause this is rattler country.” I never encountered a rattlesnake in that area, and still have not today, but I believed her all the same. That path brought home to me the meaning to the words of the psalmist as he uttered, “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.” Psalms 17:5
Gnats and horse-flies swarmed around my head, landing among the sweat drops that peppered my brow before buzzing off again, perturbed by my free hand that was constantly swatting at them. It was still early in the morning, but the heat was ramping up and the day promised to be a hot one. It is like that in the Deep South.
Finally, mercifully, the treacherous path opened onto the lake and our arrival at her fishing spot. The water was pristine, stilled as though a plate-glass covering had been placed upon it. With little or no fanfare we baited our hooks and began fishing. Granny cast out close to the bushes and remained stoic, almost taciturn as she watched her cork, never ceasing to amaze me with her uncanny ability to do so. Though I was young, I had learned not to test her patience by not providing at least a semblance of imitating her. Granny would not cotton to anyone casting bait next to her at more than a two to one ratio of her own casts. It scared the fish, she would explain. But she didn’t mind if you talked as long as it was in a low tone, and talk we did. I remember few if any of those conversations as that was a long time ago, but I am sure they were important - the things that we discussed.
I also remembered that if I strayed away from her a little, granny would hum or sing softly to herself. She never whistled tunes because that was unbecoming to a lady, and she reminded my sister on several occasions that ‘a whistling woman and a crowing hen, never did come to a very good end.’ But she would sing, and usually it was a hymn from church: Shall We Gather At The River or Count Your Many Blessings seemed to always be among her favorites.
It never took long to fill our strings with bass or bream because no catch was ever wasted with her. Fish I would be ashamed to admit I caught today were perfectly edible to her, and after all, that was what fishing was all about with granny. When the heat of the day came around, we would retrace our route up the worrisome path back to the car, and thence home to clean and cook our catch of the day.
Those were good times, the days I spent fishing with granny. Times that I muse about when today becomes hectic and my life becomes disheveled with adult problems and responsibilities. Maybe I could use a day in the deep woods, in an old car, following a delicate path that leads to a fishing hole as the preferred destination.
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