Monthly Archives: September 2010

I just read my love philosophy.  The one I talked about in my sermon this weekend.  I wrote it years ago now, as a young man who wanted to be in love.  It’s biblical. It’s passionate.

And it’s terrible.

I mean, it is written badly.

All of my life I’ve wanted to be a writer, but there’s always been this aspect I’ve really struggled with: writing.

It started in elementary school.  I wrote a story about squirrels and it was fun.  So I wrote another story that included every kid in my class as a character.  One day the teacher let me read it out loud.  They loved it!  And that’s the day my writing career was officially over.  I believed I was good at writing without working hard at it.   In reality, I had only written two short stories.  And one of them was about squirrels!

In high school, I wrote for our school newspaper.  I wrote a column called Bobby’s Word.  Yes, this went to my head.  I thought of myself as the best writer on campus.  Of course, it was a small, Christian school.  There were ten of us in my graduating class.

In college, I studied journalism.  I even wrote some news articles for the Orange County Register.  One of them was about the mission in San Juan Capistrano and was posted in the weekly, city paper.  But the problem with reporting the news is most of it is bad.  I remember one day shadowing a reporter who wrote an article on a child molester.  I began to wonder if writing was really what I wanted to do?

And then God did something amazing in my life.  He made me a youth pastor.  It wasn’t about me and expressing my thoughts.  It was about him and expressing his truth.  I had to learn how to preach the good news.  And it had to be good, because if it wasn’t the students wouldn’t want to listen.  So over the last nine years I’ve learned how to work hard doing church for high schoolers.

But God is the one doing the work!  He is saving students, radically turning their lives around to follow Jesus Christ. When I first meet them they are one way, but once God works in their heart it is like they come alive for the first time.  They are new creations in Christ.  Now these students are bold witnesses on their high school campuses.  They love the Bible.  I am seeing a revival right in front of my eyes.  As the Word of God has gone out at True North, I am seeing God use it to do a work in young people’s lives that has exceeded all of my expectations (

).

It wasn’t until I gave up trying to be a writer, that I really saw some writing.  I saw the writing that God does.  God doesn’t write on paper, he writes on people.

– And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Maybe someday I will write something worth reading, but I don’t want to be a writer anymore.   I want to be the pen.  I want to be the computer keyboard.  I want to be the instrument God uses to write on other people’s hearts.

I used to want to see a book that had the byline “By Bobby Blakey.”

But now just show me one more high schooler whose heart is on fire for the name of JESUS CHRIST!

I’d rather read that any day.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be rich?

In many ways, most of us are rich.  We live in a very wealthy part of the world.  We drive nice cars.  We live in comfortable homes.

But I’m not talking about Orange County rich.  I’m talking about filthy stinkin rich.  I’m talking Bill Gates rich.  I’m talking about being so rich, you could start spending a million dollars a day from now until the day you die and not even dent your savings account.  If you were that rich you would never have to work another day in your life.  You could buy anything you wanted.  You could give away anything you wanted, no matter how expensive it was.

Now the Bible has some input on our day-dreaming about riches.  In

, Paul warns us that the desire to be rich is a trap (insert Admiral Ackbar reference here) and that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  But check out what the Apostle Paul prays in

:

“Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.”

If you are a Christian, you are rich.  Filthy. Stinkin. Rich.  Or as Paul puts it, gloriously rich.  You have an eternal inheritance awaiting you in heaven, and even now we experience the riches of our Father’s grace.  Nothing can put a dent in your spiritual savings.  As a Christians, you need to start thinking and acting like you are spiritually loaded.  And some of the implications of this truth are similar to what we thought about earlier.

You never have to work another day in your life.  Your heavenly home is already paid in full.  Like Galatians reminded us, you are no longer a slave trying to work his way to Heaven, but a son who serves his Father out of love.

You have anything you could ever want in Christ, so you do not need to buy anything else.  When you realize how heavenly wealthy you are, you will worry less about earthly riches.  Sin will be less appealing when you realize that forsaking eternal riches for cheap pleasures is supremely foolish.

You can give anything away without worrying about the cost.  Too many Christians are stingy with their time, energy, and money because they forget how gloriously rich they are!  If you realize how much you have in Christ, you won’t worry about serving the church even if it costs time.  You won’t back down from being a witness at your school even if it costs popularity.  You won’t be afraid of foreign missions even if it costs your life.

So stop daydreaming about being rich.  Open your eyes to the reality that in Christ you already are. Filthy. Stinkin. Rich.

If you have been around True North for any length of time, I hope we have made the answer to this question crystal clear:

How do people get saved?

The answer: by faith, not by works.

We emphasize this so much at True North because it is immensely important.  What could be more crucial than getting the gospel right?  Nothing!  Paul writes a letter to the Galatians for this same reason.  He is worried that they are “turning to a different gospel,” and he uses strong language to make sure that the Galatians understand the correct gospel.  He says, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”  Whoa! That’s intense!

The true gospel is one of faith, not of works.  Paul says it simply in 2:16, “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”  In fact, he says pretty much the same thing a few times in a row just to make sure that the Galatians have got the point!

But even some of the Galatians who understood that salvation is by faith alone were still confused.  I am saved by faith, they realized, but now what?  Doesn’t my growth as a Christian depend on my works?  Now that I am a Christian, don’t I have to keep all the rules?  How do I get sanctified?

They did not realize that the answer is the same as before: by faith, not by works.

Again, Paul uses the strongest of language to get his point across.  In chapter three, he says, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?…Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”  A Christian is not only saved by faith, he is also sanctified by faith.  Too many people get saved and then think that it is up to them to try really hard and keep all the rules out of a sense of duty.  The Bible reminds us that we have new motives for doing what is right, like love, faith, freedom, and the Holy Spirit.  These are the truths that Paul will continue to pound in because the Galatians did not get it.

Do you get it?  As you read through the rest of Galatians, remember that you did not do anything to contribute to your salvation.  Respond with praise for the freedom for which Christ has set you free.  Respond with humility that will only boast in the cross of Jesus Christ.   And as you pursue sanctification, remember that it’s not about works that will hopefully produce faith, it’s about faith that will definitely produce works.

What does the Bible say about dating?

This is the question we are going to answer at True North this weekend.

When I was in high school, this question had me confused.  In fact, people told me the Bible didn’t have anything to say about it.  Look up dating in the concordance in the back of your Bible and it’s not there.

This is not true.

Yes, the word “dating” does not appear in the pages of Scripture.  But it definitely has a lot to say about a young man and a young woman starting a relationship.  In the beginning God said that this relationship was good.  And you can count on the fact that his Word will equip you for every good work.

– All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

The Bible doesn’t use the words “sports,” “Facebook” or “school.”  Yet, in these pages we can find the principles for how God wants to think about all of these things.  It is called the mind of Christ (

).  It tells us to take every thought captive to obeying him (

).  When we study the Scriptures every day we aren’t just learning what it says, we are learning how to think like Jesus.

What would Jesus do?  We can know that.

My prayer is that over the next four weeks your eyes will be opened to this fact: Scripture is sufficient!   It is the basis for everything you need to know in this life. Even when it comes to a modern term like “dating,” this ancient text is the most relevant book you will read.

So leave a comment if you are ready to learn what God wants you to do in relationships with the opposite gender.  The world calls it dating.  Christians call it courtship.  But God calls it love.

Here at True North, what we are trying to do is incredibly difficult.  It’s like camel training.  Imagine working with those large, humpbacked animals.  Now that would be a tough job! If you were trying to train them in the heat of the desert, but they just spat in your face.  And to make it worse, the trick you’ve got to teach them is to go through the eye of a needle.  Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

That’s exactly what it is like to make someone a Christian.

If our mission is to make disciples out of Orange County high school students then it is mission impossible.  We can’t do it.  It’s like going to a cemetery and asking for volunteers.  No one is going to stand up because they are all dead.  It is the same with everyone we are witnessing to.  They are dead in their sins.

Here at True North we only have one hope.  His name is Jesus, and he saves.  Here is what he said about it:

– Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

We talk a lot about our human response in repentance and faith, but unless God does his work in making people born again than nothing is going to happen.  That’s why some of us are reading this book Finally Alive by John Piper.  The book is about what happens when someone is born again.  What does God do in their heart?  What changes does he make in their life?  How can we help other people experience this?  These are the questions the book seeks to answer.

Before we get out there and witness to people, we’ve got to ask God to make them born again!  The first step to any great revival is prayer!  We need to get down on our knees every day begging with God to do what we cannot!

This is going to be an awesome weekend at True North.  Daniel Burke is making a movie.  Pastor Ben is leading in worship.  We are wrapping up our Witness series and then going evangelizing after both services.  Anyone who comes out with us gets a free Witness manual full of verses to improve your evangelism.  There will be free t-shirts, cupcakes and the gospel of Jesus Christ will ring out in Orange County!

But nothing is going to happen unless God does it.  This means we need to be praying now, seeking God’s glory as we petition him to save people.  Who is ready to pray right now that God will make people born again this year at True North?  If we really want to see revival in our schools that is where it starts!

When you go back to school this year the halls will be full of high schoolers.  But here’s a sci-fi way to think about it: The vast majority of them are walking dead.  They are spiritual zombies.  They have been born once, but that is not enough.

Let God hear from his people this day that we are ready to see more of his glory and witness a revival not just at camp in the summer, but at our schools this year!  May your friends you’ve known all of your life now become finally alive!

Will you pray?