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“Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

What are some things you believed as a child that seemed logical at the time but now you know are untrue? I think every kid I know has made this comment at one time or another. “Mommy, Daddy, the sun is following us!” They say it with so much excitement and to be completely honest, as far as they know and can understand, the sun is following them. As they grow in knowledge and understanding they are able to come to a clearer understanding of the truth but while they are young they see through a “cloudy mirror” or as other translations will say, “through a glass darkly.”

The subject of our conversation tonight is one that has caused many controversies throughout the ages and has also caused many people to scratch their heads. Some have rejected Christianity as false because of this doctrine and others have tried to come up with explanations that fall far short, but help them comprehend the subject better. It is a common problem for humanity to be unaware that they see through a “cloudy mirror.” We are so arrogant to think that if it doesn’t make sense to us, then it can’t be true. If we can’t comprehend how something works then it must work differently. It is arrogance that has caused this doctrine to be twisted and distorted, and because of it many peoples faith has been shipwrecked.

The doctrine, or teaching, that we are talking about is the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine is extremely important because it ultimately determines how we view our salvation. Our salvation is directly tied to how we view Jesus, and how we view Jesus is directly tied to how we view God, and how we work our our salvation is directly tied to how we view the Spirit. If we are to be true to God’s word, there are three truths that we must hold to for a correct understanding of the Trinity. As I go through these three statements, I will give you the scripture that backs up the statement. Because of time I won’t be able to give you all of the scripture, but I will at least give you some.

The first statement that we must hold to is God is three persons. When we look to scripture there are many passages that lead us to understand this point. There are even passages throughout the Old Testament that help us understand that God is more than one person. In Genesis God says, “Let us make human beings.” Why does he say us? The Jews didn’t understand this but we have the benefit of the New Testament to give us more clarity. Here is a passage that I think shows this point perfectly, Matthew 3:16-17.

After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

As we look at this passage, all three members of the Trinity are present and are distinct in and of themselves. Jesus is coming out of the water; the Holy Spirit is descending upon him; and then the Father speaks from heaven. This verse shows us that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate persons and debunks theories that say God is one in three separate forms. At this point you could represent each of them in three separate circles.

The next statement we need to believe is that Each person is fully God. This is where it gets a little more complicated, but not too much. This is also where Jehovah’s witnesses would depart from us. They believe that the Father is greater than the Son and the Holy Spirit but this is not true according to scripture. The Father is fully God; the Son is fully God; and the Holy Spirit is fully God. Let me show you where it says this in scripture.
There really is nobody who would argue against God the Father being fully God. It seems like a oxymoron to say that God is not fully God. In Genesis 1:1 it says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” By looking at this verse and the rest of the Bible we can see that the Father is fully God. The Old Testament and New Testament speak of Him as being sovereign over all creation and Jesus also prays to Him. There really is no controversy over this idea.
So where in scripture does it say that Jesus is fully God? As we know, this is where much debate has been focused. I could give you verse after verse that would show you that the Bible says Jesus is fully God but I will leave it to one. In John 1:1-4 it says, “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.” As we read farther into the book of John, he makes it clear to us that “the Word” is Jesus. So with that knowledge, John is saying, “In the beginning [Jesus] already existed. [Jesus] was with God, and [Jesus] was God.” When it says that Jesus “was with God” it is helping us understand that Jesus is a separate person from God the Father, He was alongside Him. Then it takes it a step farther and says that Jesus “was God”. Jesus also makes many claims like, “The Father and I are one” and so on. These all lead us to the conclusion that scripture teaches us that Jesus was fully God.
What about the Holy Spirit, does it actually say in the bible that he is fully God? This is important to know because there are some that believe the Holy Spirit isn’t really a person but is a power. They would claim that when scripture talks about the Holy Spirit, it is talking about God’s power. Besides the fact that there are many cases where this idea of the Holy Spirit wouldn’t make any sense, there is also scripture that teaches that the Holy Spirit is fully God. Let’s take a look at Acts 5:3-4. It says, “You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself….You weren’t lying to us but to God!”  Do you see what Peter is saying in this verse? First off he is rebuking Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit. Can you lie to a power? No, that doesn’t make any sense. This helps us to understand that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person. Then Peter says, “You weren’t lying to us but to God!” First Peter says that Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit and then a sentence later he says that he lied to God. This is showing us that they are distinct, yet one in the same. The Holy Spirit is also fully God.
If you were to draw this in a picture it would look much like the one I showed above.
So the first two statements that we’ve talked about were: God is three persons and Each person is fully God. So far that is not too hard to grasp right? When we throw in the third statement, it become impossible for us to comprehend fully. The third statement is that There is one God. There are not three persons who are all gods, that would be polytheism. Scripture teaches us that there is only ONE God. The best verse that talks about this statement is Isaiah 45:5-6. It says, “I am the Lord; there is no other God. I have equipped you for battle,though you don’t even know me,so all the world from east to west will know there is no other God. I am the Lord, and there is no other.” Just to make sure that the people of Israel get the point God states it twice that He is “the Lord; there is no other God.” We see it over and over in scripture that we are a people who serve only ONE God, not three. So how does all this work? Is there a picture for it? Honestly I can’t give you a picture to help you understand completely what it looks like but I can you what it does not look like.

Here are three pictures of what it doesn’t look like;

God is not divided into three equal parts as in Fig. 1. This would not fit with our second claim that Each person is fully God, it would show they are all ⅓ God. Fig. 2 would tell us that the three persons of God are just added on to his original being. Yet scripture doesn’t teach this either. Each person of the Trinity posses the same attributes as the other persons of the Trinity.  How about Fig. 3? This is probably the most common way people try and explain God. They use the analogy of water to explain it. They would say that water can be a liquid, a solid, and a vapor all the while still being H2O. Yet this analogy falls far short because water can’t be all three at once. There are people who believe that the different persons of the Trinity are just different ways of looking at God. He is still one God but reveals himself in three different ways.
All of these diagrams fall short because you would have to show that all three circles are separate and yet one at the same time, all the while being still remaining a full circle. This is baffling to many and remains a mystery of God. We will never fully understand this while we are here on earth. Remember, we see through a “cloudy mirror.”
So what does this have to do with our lives? Doctrine does us no good if it doesn’t help change the way we live. Although there are many ways of applying the Trinity to your lives, I want to help you see one major one.
The most amazing thing to comprehend about our God is that He is amazingly diverse and yet completely unified. God has the ability to be three different persons and yet only one being. And since God is the epitome of unity in diversity, we shouldn’t be surprised when we see it reflected into his desire for our human relationships, especially the church! In 1 Corinthians Paul says “there are many parts” yet “one body” and Jesus’ final earthly prayer was “I pray that [the church] will all be one, just as you and I are one.” As believers in Christ we are called to be unified, despite our diversity.
I want everyone to stand up and form a circle around the room. As you stand here, take a good look at everyone standing around the circle. We are an extremely diverse group and whether you like it or not, and God has called us to be unified!

We are not supposed to be separated into little cliques. We are not supposed to look down our nose at those in this circle who we think we are better than or, on the flip side, look with hatred at those we feel are self-righteous. We are supposed to be unified and acting as a body.

There may be someone in this circle who you may not like, who drive you absolutely crazy. Too bad, that’s just an excuse. Remember our new saying, “If it’s important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.” We can make all the excuses in the world about why our group is not unified, and all it’s going to say is that it’s not important to us. This should be important to us. Anything that is at the essence of who God is needs to be important to us! That means you need to find a way and stop making excuses.

God has called us to be a unified body and tonight we are going to start that process by praying as a body. Everyone grab your neighbors hand and we are going to pray. I’ll have someone open and someone close. Anyone who would like to pray for something, feel free to jump in. Let’s Pray.

Melissa Terpstra will be facilitating this group every 2nd and 4th Wednesday night (opposite of Gems and Cadets) throughout the year, starting on October 12th. The study will go from 7:00pm-8:30pm, the time that your teens will be attending Ignite.

The foundation of the study will be based on two books. The first is ”Age of Opportunity” by Paul David Tripp and the second is ”Building Better Families” by Matthew Kelly. If there have been any books that you have found helpful in your journey as a parent, please bring them too. We are hoping this will be a place where parents can help and support each other along this journey.

Hope to see all of you there!!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

We are changing things up a little bit this year. We will be having a pre-Ignite game time that will run from 6:30-7:15. We will have various activities for everyone to do prior to the service. The service will run from 7:15-8:30 with a Hang-out time following the service.

Hope to see everyone there!!!

As I started off on my ride, I realized that the wind was blowing directly in my face. I usually don’t enjoy riding into the wind but last night I wasn’t on a time frame, so I could take as long as I wanted. Half-way through the ride my legs began to wear thin (it’s amazing how much more difficult it is pedal into the wind than it is without any wind). There were multiple times when I got to the point of frustration and was ready to take a break. Then all of a sudden I would get to an area where the trees were blocking the wind and my legs were able to get some rest. I couldn’t help but have 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 pop into my head.  It says, “We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.  In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.  And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us.” There are times in life when we think we can no longer go on, when we feel like we have given everything we’ve got, and then we remember that God is faithful. He has always been there in the past and He will be there in the future. We must remember that we can’t continue to rely on our own strength, because we are far too weak, but we must rely on God and His strength.

This also assumes that we are putting ourselves into positions where we are pushed past our limits. It assumes that we are not simply sitting in our comfortable environment, never stretching ourselves for God’s glory. We must get out into the world and be salt and light. It may be hard and there may be times when we don’t think we can go on, but it is those times that God says, “My power works best in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

The whole first half of the ride was, basically,  miserable. I kept asking myself, “Why are you even doing this?” I usually love riding bike but this time it was different.  I can’t really say that I hated the ride, but I can say that I wasn’t enjoying it. It was tough going the entire way, except for the brief moments of relief. As soon as you had the slightest relief, the wind would blow harder. I remember thinking, ” It’s the winds fault. This wind is taking all the joy out of my biking.”  At that point another passage leaped to my mind, James 1:2-4. It says, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” Consider it joy? What in the world? This is not joyful, it stinks! Why should I consider this “an opportunity for great joy” when it feels like it is taking the joy away from this experience? The next verse gives us the reason we should see it as ”an opportunity for great joy.” We should see this as ”an opportunity for great joy” because we are developing endurance. That makes sense doesn’t it? We go on bike rides like this so that we can do longer and harder rides later, after we have developed more endurance. We should be excited that the training we are doing now is preparing us for something bigger, something harder, something that will glorify God better.

What an amazing way to look at our troubles in life. God uses them to train us for bigger and better things, things that will glorify Him more and spread His kingdom. When we get so caught up in the moment and complain about the joy being removed, we have forgotten to look to the future. We are short-sighted. God is using this trial to train us for something better. He is helping us develop endurance, which leads to us becoming “perfect and complete, needing nothing.” God is going to transform us into Christ’s likeness (Romans 8:29) and He doesn’t want to drag us kicking and screaming. We should desire to become more like Christ, who was “perfect and complete, needing nothing,” and therefore should stop complaining when we go through hard times, but recognize that God is training us for something better.

There is one more thing that I learned on this ride. I learned that we must be scripture saturated people if we want God to use our daily lives to teach us important lessons. We must listen to the words God spoke to Joshua in chapter 1, verse  8. He said, “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” We will prosper in all that we do because God’s word will be leading our lives and guiding our thoughts. It is no longer something that we merely read, but it becomes who we are. God will continually be “speaking” to us throughout our day as scripture comes to mind at  just the right time. I definitely think this is one of the ways that we can do everything to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

May we be people of the word, letting God guide our lives, letting God train us, for His glory.

Elim Oasis

Thank you so much for coming to the Adult Day Center, Elim Oasis on Wednesday!!  We had a great time exercising, and playing games. You did a fabulous job of weeding our city parking lot flower beds. What a great bunch of teens from Bethel Church!!

Thanks so much.

Darlene Walburg and the staff and clients of Elim Oasis.

Rum River Health Services (Belle Haven)

I sent a thank you card to Bethel Church, but I wanted to personally thank you for the organizing and hard work you put into the sandbox and landscaping clean-up for Rum River Health Services.  I cannot tell you how grateful we are for your wonderful donation.  The kids here at Belle Haven are enjoying the sandbox SO much.  I hope you get to come by sometime and see the kids playing in the sand.

Thank you again for all you do.

With gratitude,

Kim Skarohlid-Young

Sonia Strickland

I am fairly certain that I have the right group…we were pleasantly surprised to have a group of young people stop by and ask if they could help with picking up the yard after the winds from this morning. They were such good workers and very nice kids!!!  We thought they were doing the pick up as a fundraiser but when they completed the task and we offered them some money they said no…they were just trying to help and be active…what a wonderful attitude.  We truly appreciate these type of people in our community!!!!

After we finished up with the devos we had a short session asking the kids to think about three things. What are the characteristics of someone who you see as a role model? What needs to you see in the community around you and in your families? What has God been convicting you of this week? We then sent them off to spend 4 hours in solitude seeking direction from God and meditating on how the answers to those three questions might tie together. I ended up being a phenomenal day of growth and many of the youth saw this as their highlight for the week.  After sharing about how God was speaking to us during solitude time, we headed into town for some free time. While on their free time all of the students were challenged to have at least one five minute conversation with a stranger and then end it in prayer. This proved to be an amazing experience for all of the kids as they met some amazing people and watched how their faces lit up as they dove into their life and cared about them. Most of the students were bold enough to end their conversations in prayer!! We are very proud of them!!

We headed back to church eating out supper, which was pizza, on the way. Once we got back, we filled the group in on how we would be wrapping up our week. The YMT decided that it would be most beneficial/fun for the kids to wrap the week up doing mock debates on some of the topics we discussed throughout the week. We paired students up with each other and they had one hour to prepare for the debate. Some of our students were forced to argue either for or against topics that they disagreed with but they all did a wonderful job. It even got a little heated at the end as Geoff and I debated Willy and Erick on the resurrection of Jesus.  We wanted to challenge our seniors before they headed out to college by challenging their beliefs on the core part of our belief system. They did an awesome job!!

Then we wrapped up the week the same way we wrap up every trip, with highlights and impacts around the fire. It was funny to listen the kids before we started because they  were talking about how they didn’t have to cry after this trip. They reasoned it was because they would not be leaving everyone but by the time the fire was done there was a huge hug-fest and lots of tears shed. God was definitely moving in and among our group and touching lives throughout the week.

All in all it was an awesome week and everyone of the kids expressed that they we very glad that we stayed around home and that this week was way better that SERVE. This was another confirmation that were doing what God wanted us to do. We really pushed our kids in all aspects of their lives this week and we watched them grow in HUGE ways. All praise to God, the author and perfecter of our faith!!

As we broke into small groups this morning we studied Romans 12:14-16. We talked about how hard it is for us to bless those who persecute us and went over ways we can do that. It has been cool watching the group learn how to read their Bibles with a fine tooth comb and pull out every bit of application they can.

Today was our Day Away, so our entire group had the opportunity to take canoes down the Rum River. The river was as high as I have ever seen it, so it worked our really well. It only took a few corners and a couple close calls before they began to figure out what it takes to control a canoe. At the halfway point we beached the canoes and spent time eating lunch and playing in the river. With the river so high, the current was really moving fast. Our group jumped on this opportunity to see how they could swim with lifejackets on in the strong current. It ended up turning into a team building exercise as they had to catch people before they floated away down the river.

After finishing up on the river, we ran over to the Payments house and helped them begin the process of cleaning. All of the youth were excited to be able to serve one of the leaders that has had an impact on their life. By the time they were done cleaning the wear and tear of canoeing and the sun were beginning to show and the group was beginning to drag. As they showed up at church for supper they encountered a wonderful surprise. Terri Baas, Sue Terborg, Lisa Versluys, and Pat Gorham had prepared an Agape Feast for them and they didn’t pull out any of the stops. The students were escorted to their seats and as they entered the dining area they heard music playing softly in the background and could smell the fragrance of flowers. The students were told to take notice that a seat had been reserved for Jesus and it was He who had invited them to this banquet because He loves them. What a powerful reminder and a beautiful way to end a day! The group was waited on and served. They all decided to thank our servers with a hug line because they appreciated it so much.

Some of the students followed supper with a nap, some with games, and one of our small groups took the opportunity to run some toys over the sandbox they had created. I am sure the kids at Belle Haven are very grateful for the love that was shown to them by this group! We wrapped up the night with our campfire message that was lead by Geoff Bazuin. He helped give the group tools to handle the times of doubt and to help them persevere.

All glory to God, Amen!