From Sampler to Sower

Weekend Teaching Series: You Decide

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 10 of 10, For the same reasons as the Junior High service, this was a difficult night.  Fortunately, by the time the teaching time came around in the service, the Excedrin I’d been taking all day finally began to kick in.  I really did think, going into this service, that there was a chance I’d have to cut the teaching short.  But God is good.

Message Summary: We’re in the fourth week of our You Decide series in which we’ve been answering the questions students ask. As I’ve mentioned for the past three weeks, we’re using a  Poll Everywhere poll to collect the questions teens have and I’m choosing the best to answer at Water’s Edge.  This weeks top questions included “Who is Legion?” “What’s the difference between the Old and New Testament?” and “Will all dogs really go to heaven?”

I started by answering a couple of off-subject questions to promo future events.  Questions like “Are we ever going to go Laser Tagging again?” and “When are you going to answer the question about Halloween?”  Then I dove into the three real questions for the night.

The first question was pretty straight forward: “What does the bible say about Legion? Better who is Legion?“ I’m not really sure what gave rise to this question.  Perhaps someone has seen trailers for the movie by that name that’s supposed to be released in January.  Whatever the reason, it was an easy one to answer.

The name “Legion” comes from an event in the life of Jesus recorded in Mark and Luke.  We read the Luke account of the exorcism.

Here’s the story in a nutshell: Jesus meets a crazy naked guy in a cemetery who is demon possessed.  The demons recognize Jesus for who he really is and challenge his authority over them.  Jesus demands that they tell him their name, and they reply “Legion.”

Now, Legion isn’t really a name. It’s actually a transliteration of a Greek word which refers to a company of soldiers.  Under emperor Augustus, a legion consisted of about 6,000 men plus about 300 cavalry soldiers.

Because the man was possessed by several demons, when asked for a name they responded “Legion” because there were so many of them.  They may have resisted the urge to reveal their individual names because of the belief that if they revealed their true name, Jesus would have control over them. Yet Jesus drives out the demons anyway.  His authority and power were not the result of some magical knowledge or skill in sorcery. Jesus speaks with the authority of God himself, and what Jesus commands even the demons obey.

After the demons are driven out into the herd of pigs, the pigs panic and stampede into the lake where they drown.  The pigherds tell the people of the closest village what has happened, and they come out to see Jesus.  When they arrive they find the guy who always used to be crazy and naked sitting fully clothed and in his right mind at the feet of Jesus.  But they’re more concerned about their animals than their brother and they ask Jesus to leave the region before he does any more harm.

My favorite part of the story is the line that describes what the people found when they got to Jesus.  “When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid (Luke 8:35, NIV).”  The difference Jesus made in the life of this man is immediately apparent to everyone who is watching.

When others look at us, do they see the difference Jesus made?

That brings us to the second question for the night: “What is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?”  Simple answer: about 250 years (or 450 depending on who you believe about when Daniel was written).

But more seriously, the Old Testament are the Scriptures to which the Jewish people look as authoritative.  It’s divided up into five sections, the Pentateuch (or the Torah, the Law), the Histories, the Writings, the Major and Minor Prophets.

The Old Testament tells the story of God’s activity in the history of the people of Israel.  The Pentateuch tells the story of the origins of humanity through the origin of the people of Israel and records the law which created the identity of the people of Israel.

The Histories tell stories from the life of Israel the nation, from the conquest of the promised land, to the time of the kings, through the era of the divided kingdom, all the way up to and even the return from exile in Babylon.

The Writings are works of poetry that focus on wisdom and worship.  For example, Psalms is a collection of Hebrew worship songs.  Proverbs on the other hand is a collection of wise sayings.

The Major and Minor prophets are records of God’s messages to his people through his prophets.

The New Testament, on the other hand, tells the story of God’s activity in the person of his son Jesus Christ and the Body of Christ – the church.  It’s divided up into the gospels, acts, epistles and revelation.  The Gospels tell the story of Jesus.  Acts tells the story of the early church.  The Epistles are letters from prominent Christian leaders to various churches and people.  Revelation is a message from God to his church through John which speaks of the ultimate triumph of God over evil.

But more important than the differences is what connects them.  They aren’t two different stories, they are one story that spans the centuries.

There was a movement in early Christianity to ignore the Hebrew Scriptures.  Marcion, a second century teacher, argued that the Old Testament tells the story of a different god; not the God of the New Testament and the Father of the Christ, but an evil god who created a world full of evil and whose evil Jesus Christ came to undo.  The Bible he encourage is followers to read ommitted the Old Testament, and retained only the Epistles and the Gospel of John.  What’s more, he edited those works to eliminate the references to the Old Testament therein.

But the church understood that Marcion was wrong and condemned him as a heretic.  The Old Testament does not stand opposed to the new.  The two tell one story.

The Old Testament points to Christ and reveals the need for a Messiah.  Without the Old Testament you don’t know the history that gave rise to Jesus or why he came.

The New Testament remembers the Old and shows how the prophecies of the Old are fulfilled in Christ and the church.

They are not two stories, they are one story, profoundly connected.

This challenges the way in which we typically do devotions.  It’s easy to focus on the New Testament.  We’re much more familiar with it and with it’s stories.   The Old Testament can be hard to understand and downright weird at times.  But any study that focuses on the New Testament to the exclusion of the Old impoverishes itself.

The third question I suspect was asked in jest but it gave me the chance to teach on something that matters.  A student asked, “Do all dogs really go to heaven or is that just a misleading title to a movie?”

To really get into this we had to answer the question what exactly is heaven.

When we think of heaven we normally think of a paradise that our souls go to live with God and the angels when we die.  However, the Biblical picture of heaven is quite different.

In the Book of Revelation, heaven is where God lives with his angels and the souls of the martyrs, people who died for their faith.  Earth is where the final struggles of evil’s death throes are still being fought out.  (Not that it’s any struggle for God – his victory is assured from before the creation of the world.  The strife is caused by evil, like a team that knows it’s about to lose, trying to injure as many of the opponents players before the time runs out.)

But heaven and earth aren’t separate forever.  God’s plan is to unite heaven and earth – for the New Jerusalem to come down out of heaven and descend to earth, until God reigns in a new and transformed earth for eternity.  It is there that we will live forever, not as angels or as souls, but as resurrected bodies.

This final earthly reality is what I think of when I think of heaven.

So will there be dogs there?

According to Revelation 22:14-15, no.

In describing this heaven come to earth, this New Jersalem come down out of heaven, John quotes Christ who says” “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” (NIV, emphasis added.)

But before you all send me nasty comments for my cruelty, let me finish.  I in no way think this means that literally all dogs are condemned to hell.  The picture of hell is influenced by the Valley of Hinnom outside the city of Jerusalem.  In fact, the New Testament word for hell is Gehenna and refers to this valley outside the city.  In ancient Israel it was a site known for idolatry, where worshippers made sacrifices to the false god Molech.  Over time, it became the town dump.  Not a landfill, mind you, just a dump.  Garbage, trash, remains of animals and even criminals who did not deserve the dignity of burial were just thrown down into this valley.  To keep it from filling up, fires were lit to burn the amassed waste.  Imagine the smell of rot, decay and burning flesh.  The valley was also home to packs of wild dogs that fed on the refuse.

That’s the Biblical picture of the eternity awaiting those who do evil.  The dogs are outside the city, not because all dogs have been thrown out (or kept out) of heaven.  The dogs are outside because the imagery of wild dogs waiting to tear apart anyone thrown outside is part of the picture of hell being painted.

On the other hand, the Bible clearly depicts the animal kingdom enjoying the benefits of the redemption of the world.  Romans 8:18-21 says “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

In other words, the sinful choices of humanity have not only wreaked havoc for human civilization, all creation has been condemned to death and decay because of our poor choices.  As such, all creation, dogs included, look forward to the redemption of humanity and the transformation of creation.  It’s not just humans who will enjoy the universe transformed, all creation will be liberated.

Because of this, all creation begins to celebrate when they see this redemption coming to pass.  Revelation 5:13 says
Then I heard every creature  in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’”  Every creature, dogs included, worship at the coming of Christ.

All of creation has suffered because of humanity’s sin, and all creation will benefit from humanity’s redemption.

So will dogs go to heaven?  No.  But heaven will come to dogs.  The end of revelation involves a creation (dogs included) redeemed and transformed.

But what about my dog?  Will my dog who died last year be in that heaven?

That’s a bit tougher.  Nothing in scripture to my knowledge suggests that animals will be resurrected.  That doesn’t mean they won’t.  It also doesn’t mean they will.  Personally I doubt it.  But hey, that’s just me.  But I do expect there will be dogs in the earth transformed.

But why does that matter?

The Bible doesn’t depict this heaven as something we have to wait until we die to be a part of.  The kingdom of heaven that Jesus spoke so much about was a reality he came to establish here and now.  The work destroying the devil’s works has already begun in Christ and we are called to continue carrying that out.  Heaven has not yet fully come to earth, but heaven is already here.  As followers of Christ we are already a part of it.  And we are called to begin the transformation of our world until it reflects the realty we’ve already entered.

The real question isn’t when will heaven come to dogs, but what are you doing to redeem the world in which we all, dogs included, live, until God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven?

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We stole the “Superhero Cartoon Name that Tune” game from Junior High and played it again with the Senior Highers.

Worship Set: Mighty to Save, Here I am to Worship, Revelation Song, In Christ Alone

Favorite Moment: Watching Jarod completely dominate “Name that Tune.”  It seemed he was guessing on a lot of them, but his every guess was right…