Mature Class Study, teacher Alyce Crain.
There’s a lot of ugliness in our world today. Sin is rampant and lives are being destroyed. Nations are in turmoil and people are affected globally. People are inventing things to give them hope and comfort, and to feel better that only last a short time. God wants to use the Church of God to help people who are searching for God.
Psalm 48:1-2 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.
To some people, God is dead. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche saw society was moving away from God or killing God in their lives when he said,
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
You can never kill God because he is eternal and relevant for all periods of time. Relevant means to be current, right, and appropriate for the circumstances and what is being done or considered. God wants to use us at the Church of God in that relevancy. God is relevant for everything going on in the world because he created the world. He knows how we work and think. He created the people so he knows how the mental and emotional things in people function. He cares for us and created mankind specifically to have relationship with him. He wants the Church of God to be instrumental in helping people find that relationship and to see he is relevant to them. The Church of God is composed of those who are saved. God wants the Church of God to be highly visible so people can see him helping us and active in our life situations. How is the Church of God beautiful for situation? He is beautiful for situation in our words, our lives, and our works.
The Church of God is beautiful for situation through our words. God wants us to have wholesome words that convey hope, encouragement, truth, uplifting and not tearing, that are controlled or bridled to speak good, godly words at the right time.
Proverbs 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
God wants to us to use words that other people can understand. In the scripture he was talking about using another language but it also means the words we use.
I Corinthians 14:19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.
There are a lot of slang words that are used by people in the world. We have to be careful when we use slang words. For example, Are you lit? To young people today, the slang “Are you lit?” means to be really crazy drunk. God wants us to put biblical terms into every day simple language for talking to people. The young people in the audience gave examples of simple language as follows: God – the creator of all things. I Am – the name God called himself shows his nature of always being. Sin – bad actions and feelings that are against God. Conviction – a personal belief or when you believe strongly in something. Jesus, the Son of God – he died for our sins and was sent by God as his Father to live for all man and show it’s possible to live through him and please God. Devil – the Greek name means slanderer. He was created by God and presents situations to separate us from God. Salvation – when you realize you are doing wrong, then you apologize and promise to do right with God’s help. Born again – starting over new. Sanctification – choosing to stop doing wrong because you want to love God all the way and fully devote yourself to God. Heaven and hell – life is a path that leads to 2 places. Heaven – your reward for living right and Hell – the punishment for not living right. Lukewarm – to not care, it’s like lukewarm food and you don’t want it. Holy Ghost – the angel on your shoulder telling you to do the right thing. Christian – to live like Christ. When we speak about God, we’re here to lift up Christ so people see and have hope through him. The philosphy of Nietzsche produces death. Our words about Christ lift up life.
I Corinthians 1:17-18 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
The Church of God is beautiful for situation and it is relevant through the way we believe? We show God is real and show the church as a city set on a hill and set apart so it is visible for everyone to see. False Christianity talks a lot but doesn’t live like the Bible teaches. God speaks to people’s hearts but he also talks to people by the way we live. God’s grace is unmerited favor and is shown in what he has done in our life and his favors to us.
Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
God wants us to be real, not putting on a cloak of religion that doesn’t really show who we are. If we’re only showing the happy – good side of our life, it can be discouraging and seem unattainable. Life is a series of ups and downs and it can be messy. It’s good for family and friends to see us going through messy situations in life and see that God helps us.
Colossians 3:21 Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
The Church of God is beautiful for situation through our works. The Church of God has been beautiful for situation throughout time. The Israelites were traumatized by the Egyptians for hundreds of years but God delivered them. He brought them out and when the sea covered the soldiers that chased them, that was the end. God gave them societal structure through the law because it was appropriate for their time and they needed it after what they just came out of. God brought the Messiah after God had not shown himself to them for 400 years. It was what the people needed at that time. Jesus brought healing and teaching about his love that was appropriate for that time. What are we doing now to be appropriate for our time and what is God telling us? Peter was prepared by God for an outreach to the Gentiles. There was a teaching about the Jews not mixing with the nations around them. They had taken the law a step further to not have any contact with those around them. God was asking Peter to change something he’d been doing that was like a personal conviction in his way of observing the Jewish law. God wanted him to change something about himself. Peter was astonished and thought God was asking him to go against God. When God shows us things, it might even be a little different than what we’re used to. Trust God to do what he shows you because he won’t lead you astray.
Acts 10:11-15 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And…a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean. And the voice spake…What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.