Hey Harvesters!
Considering the fact that we have a compressed week with the Thanksgiving break, I thought I’d get a jump on sending out the notes this week! Have a great Thanksgiving and we’ll see you next Sunday!

Byron

Harvest South Bay                November 23rd, 2008
Response Time
Great Expectations: The Gospel of Mark
Mark 9:1-13

Exposition:
“…there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power…”

1. Interpretation 1: the kingdom of God after it has come with power = Jesus’ powerful death and resurrection.

2. Interpretation 2: the kingdom of God after it has come with power = the powerful coming of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost (Acts 2).

3. Interpretation 3: the kingdom of God after it has come with power =Jesus’ second coming (that there is some VERY old guy in a cave waiting for Jesus’ second coming.

4. Interpretation 4: the kingdom of God after it has come with power = The revelation of Jesus’ true nature in power during the transfiguration *

* the preferred interpretation because it is consistent with the context.

2 Correct Responses to Encountering God

1. AWE
2. LISTENING

Weekly Application Exercises
1. Responding to God presupposes that we are encountering Him: spend a set amount of time during your quiet times this week simply to be in God’s presence.

2. Spend time doing a systematic checkup of how well you are listening to God rather than presuming upon His will. Evaluate your goals and decisions in light of our tendency to project our wills upon our impression of who God is and what He wants.

More application questions/exercises
1. Spend a few minutes this week admiring the sky- either the stars at night or the expanse of the sky in the day. Scripture on many occasions uses the sky to inspire us concerning the dimensions of God. Meditate on God’s expanse and how His infinity impacts your life.
2. Read the book of Ephesians this week, quickly once through and then once more contemplatively. The book itself is meant to impact our daily living by raising the standards of our behavior through broadening our imaginings of who God is. Ask yourself as your read: how can I live a life congruent with the greatness of God and His will?

Hi Harvesters!
2008 is slowly slipping out of our hands and the New Year will be upon us soon! I hope you’ve all had a good year of growing in the Lord: being stretched in your faith and practice. 2008 has definitely been a big lesson for me in dependence upon Him and reliance on His strength.

Here are the notes from this last week’s sermon and some discussion questions/exercises!

Harvest South Bay
November 16, 2008
Death Becomes Us
The Gospel of Mark: Mark 8:22-36
Having a Clear Vision of God: In order to see God fully we must be fully submitted to Him

Three Instructions to Clear our Vision
1. We need to change our values
2. We need to change our perspective
3. We need to change our plans

Weekly application exercises
1. Pray for those experiencing loss from the fires here in Southern California. Find one way that you can meet the need of someone in crisis that involves personal cost.
2. Ask a mature believer in Christ what steps you can take in order to stretch your faith and grow deeper in maturity in your faith.

Additional Questions/Exercises
1. Take an accounting of your expenses for the last month. How do you finances reflect your heart, your insecurities, and what you value? Evaluate if your values have been impacted by the recent financial crisis in our country.
2. Christianity Today ran an article several years ago on Saint Ned: Ned Flanders from the TV series “The Simpsons.” The magazine touted Ned Flanders as a great example of Christlikeness (minus some of the hijinks that he encounters later in the series): he is devout, he is extreme, and he reflects virtually every fruit of the Spirit to an uncomfortable degree. We observe many pious Christians in the same light: as objects of ridicule or people who are too extreme, yet Jesus calls us to have an extreme change of values and perspective. How can we be more extreme in the development of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives?
3. What plans for your life (and  your families’ lives) do  you hold onto tightly? How free is your soul to be steered by God in the direction that He would require?

1. Stephanie is great need of shoeboxes: apparently we have stuff to stuff in but not enough containers!

2. Here’s the link to directions/labels for families packing shoe boxes at home and bringing them to church this Sunday:
http://www.samaritanspurse.org/pdf/PackABoxwithLabels.pdf

3. Here’s the link to the Donation Form for $7 and labels:
http://www.samaritanspurse.org/pdf/one_sheet.pdf

Hey Harvesters!
YAY! Our church has a new phone number where I can be reached so that we don’t drain the Jungs’ family plan of all of our minutes. The new number I will write out here because there are nasty phishing thingamajigs that harvest your phone number if it’s posted online and send you countless text messages. SO if you want to call Harvest South Bay, our new number is 310 nine-five-one, FOURTEEN twenty. We’re trying this out with prepaid minutes to see if it is more affordable that way AND we got a free phone so we’re being good stewards of God’s resources! YAY!

Byron

Hey Harvesters!
One year has almost elapsed since our family has been here at Harvest: thanks to all of you who have made this transition so enjoyable. Our small group has been a great blessing and we enjoy the great range of friends we have made. May God bless our church as we seek how He would use us as a catalyst for change in the South Bay for His glory.

As always, here are the notes from last week’s sermon. I hope that the many teachers who minister to our kids especially have time to listen to the sermon on line. Consider tuning in via the web during your lunchtime at work or some time after you put your kids to sleep. It’s vital that we all “eat” spiritually- which is drawing sustenance from God’s Word on a regular basis!

Byron

Harvest South Bay                November 9th, 2008

Say Again?
Great Expectations: The Gospel of Mark
Mark 8:1-26

God repeats Himself because we are hard of hearing

Exposition:
The feeding:
Mark records the feeding of the 4,000 because it shows that Jesus repeats certain actions because we have learned the lessons He seeks to teach.
The disciples:
The disciples failed to learn the lesson that Jesus could and would provide whatever food they needed- and so Jesus was obviously teaching a spiritual lesson instead of physical one when He referred to the “leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod”
The blind man:
Jesus two-stage miracle was given to indicate our lack of clarity in seeing God and His will. It encourages us because Jesus eventually touches us to the extent that we can see His lessons rightly.
3 lessons that bear repeating

1. Have faith in Jesus’ supernatural power.
Live as if God exists and can be depended upon.

2. Look for Jesus’ supernatural power.
Have a spiritual perspective which is constantly waiting and watching for God’s guidance.

3. Understand Jesus’ supernatural lessons.
Be concerned about how God is informing our lives spiritually rather than being consumed by the pedestrian affairs of daily life.
Weekly Application Exercises
1. Have a discussion with a fellow believer about what God is teaching you about Himself.

2. Do something risky this week for God, depending on His power and wisdom.

Recommended reading
1. Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
2. How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
3. Children’s Thinking, Robert Siegler

Additional Questions:
1. How often do you have a productive spiritual discussion with other believers- where you have the opportunity to share about God and His will and directions rather than simply church or work or school? How can you improve on the frequency of these discussions OUTSIDE of formal settings (small group/church)
2. Spend some time assessing the trajectory of your life that God has willed. Where would God want to move you next in terms of your life’s circumstances? How would He want to reshape your soul if you were willing to change?
3. How open are you to change in the church and change that impacts your family and friends? Are you part of a larger vision for God’s people which is exciting and faith stretching and based on bringing more people to the Lord?

Good Morning Harvest!
Don’t forget to go out and vote today! I’ve made myself a nice little “cheat sheet” on all of the candidates, judges and propositions to take into the polls so that I don’t hold up the lines. Now all I have to do is punch everything out correctly and not leave any “hanging chads!”

Let’s continue to pray for all of our nations leaders, the spiritual state of our government, and the direction of our communities. Continue to thank God for the many blessings He has afforded us in living in the United States!

byron

Harvest South Bay                November 2nd, 2008
Hearing Aid
Great Expectations: The Gospel of Mark
Mark 7:31-37

Narrative: Jesus takes a deaf man with a speech impediment aside and heals him while people disobey Jesus’ commandment to keep the miracle a secret.
The lack of understanding of the disciples: The disciples keep displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of Jesus and His mission. He tells them on 3 different occasions of His persecution and death (Mark 8:31;9:3; 10:33,34) and each time they display their lack of understanding. This is the reason why we understand Jesus’ healing miracles in this section (Mark 7:31-37;8:22-26;10:46-52) as more than simple healings: they also serve as parables which illustrate the need to hear and see Jesus for who He truly is: the suffering Messiah who comes to redeem us of our sins.
3 prerequisites to hearing God
1. Realize that Jesus is the one who opens our ears
2. Understand our hardness of heart.
3. Challenge conventional wisdom.

Weekly Application Exercises
1. Memorize some part of the Bible this week and seek to think on what you memorize throughout the day- seeing how God challenges you with that piece of His instruction.
2. Identify a part of the Bible which you have previously thought as impractical in it’s application. How would God want to challenge you in implementing that Scripture in your life?

Recommended reading
1. Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman
2. How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
3. Children’s Thinking, Robert Siegler

Some additional questions from the sermon:
1. Recall some sins that you continued in for some time but now have rejected. What was that process like? What circumstances made you hold on tightly to those sins? What kind of excuses did you hold to internally which kept you from giving  up those sins? How does that experience of breaking from from sin inform any present processes in your life in identifying, breaking from, and being victorious from sin?
2. In your life, what has hearing God’s voice and experiencing Him been like? At what times has He spoken to you and in your pursuit of Him, have you simply tried to recreate those experiences rather than recognizing His authority in revelation?
3. Rate your countercultural-ness on a scale between 1-10 (1= very much like society around me, 10= very different than everything!). How does your conformity to norms interfere with pursuing God’s will for your everyday actions and overall plan for your life?