516 Youth

In Sr. High Sunday School, we are going through the book Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears. This week’s topic was Why Should We Worship Jesus?, and part of the lesson dealt with what worship is and what it is not, including the issue of idolatry. Driscoll and Breshears write,

The opposite of worship is idolatry, or the worshiping of something or someone other than the One True God of the Bible alone. On this point, Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft has said, “The alternative to theism is not atheism but idolatry.”

The Apostle Paul touches on this in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, where he writes:

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Dealing with this idea of worshipping created things rather than the Creator, Driscoll notes an experience he had in India, when after seeing various temples and personal shrines erected to false gods, an Indian believer commented on the idolatry prevalent in the United States. Although Driscoll was at first taken aback by such a comment, upon further reflection, he realized it was true.

We picked up on this theme of idol worship in America at youth group on Sunday night by watching the following video that is played before each LSU home football game:

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This Penn State story isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, though it seems inconceivable, it looks like it will get worse before it gets better. On Tuesday, I wrote a post geared toward parents that focused on the lessons we should learn from this story, and specifically Joe Paterno’s involvement in it, in order to prevent something like that from happening in our families and churches. Today I want to address some of the lessons that our students can take away this situation.

In youth group, we are in the middle of a series on 1 Timothy 4:12. This past Sunday we looked at setting an example in conduct (i.e., with our actions and behavior). As I watched the fate of Joe Paterno and other administrators at Penn State unfold on CNN and ESPN last night, I couldn’t help but connect the situation to what we talked about on Sunday night. Some of these lessons will reinforce what we talked about. Some will be new ones that we didn’t discuss. But all of them are important for us to keep in mind. To set an example in conduct, you need to:

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(Source: pastornoah.com)