Our Class is Moving THIS Sunday...

Once again the Homebuilders classroom is on the move! We'll be relocating to the SOUTH BUILDING BASEMENT, SB2. To find this room, take the elevators just outside of the A Division (where the nursery is) down to the basement. You'll notice that the entry way to the preschool divisions looks MUCH different. The ARC and colorful wall paintings are gone. We have been promised something very special and inviting to take the place in the coming weeks. There will be coffee and fellowship as usual. The Door will also be joining us in the basement! If you have any questions please email us. See you Sunday!!!

1 John and Love

Loving What God Loves
Today's Reading: 1 John 4:7-21
Recommended Reading: Matthew 25:31; Luke 10:25-37; 19:1-8

We all have people in our lives who absolutely drive us nuts. We might call them EGRs because, in order to be around them, Extra Grace is Required. Maybe they're socially awkward, and conversations with them seem about as invigorating as reading the tax code. Or maybe they're loudmouths who hold really strong opinion and think that everyone else wants to hear their advice. Or maybe they just have a personality trait that is completely opposite of yours. Whatever the case, one thing is true about all of these EGRs: They matter intensely to God.

And if that doesn't induce enough guilt, John piles on more. He points out that if you say you love God yet secretly detest a fellow believer, you don't really understand what loving God means.

When it comes to loving what God loves, John points out that your response affects more than God. It's also of crucial importance to you! John states this forcefully because refusing to love what God loves poses a huge danger to us. If we dishonor the very people for whom God sent his Son to die, we can't be in tune with God's heart at all.

So when we love what God loves, we make sure to control what we say. We think through how we will come across to people around us. We willingly reign in our responses, aiming to make them godly. In short, we attempt to respond as God would respond, to act as Jesus would.

We'll make these efforts because we want the kind of relationship with God that he wants us to have. As Christians, we're called to love what and whom he loves, and that starts with one another - even our EGRs.

Questions:
Who are the people in your life you'd classify as EGRs - people you find tough to love?
What steps can you take to show these people that they matter to God - and to you?
What steps can you take to change your hearts towards your EGRs?

from the Men's Devotional Bible via Mary!

BBQ Mission

I take this BBQ stuff way too seriously.

Though I’m a born and raised Texan who has always ‘liked’ BBQ, only last summer did I really begin to understand and develop a passion for true central Texas BBQ, and what separates the sublime from the mediocre. Almost everything in Austin, by the way, falls under mediocre. I’ll wax philosophical on the difference later if you want to hear a fat boy talk about BBQ in detail, but first I want to offer some suggestions of how to do this trip if you are interested.

I would bring at least $30 in cash. You might only need $20, but I’m not sharing my brisket if you run out of money. We are going to four places in the span of a few hours…so PACE YOURSELF. I would order a representative sample of the mains meat (usually brisket, sausage, and pork ribs, but whatever you want). If I’m eating at four places, I’m eating at most at each place a quarter pound of brisket (hopefully less, but its funny ordering 1/8th a pound), one pork rib, and a couple of bites of sausage. It can make sense to get in groups of about four and let one person order and pay for the whole group, switching the payer at each place. You could also take a small cooler to hold your left-overs at each place to save for later. Prioritize…I don’t recommend getting sides. They needlessly take up space, cost money, and are typically somewhat mediocre anyway.

Alright…about what makes Texas BBQ special and what separates the great from the mediocre.

While Texans will smoke about any meat and serve it with potato salad, typically three meats are considered Texas BBQ staples: brisket, sausage, and pork ribs. Honorable mentions go to beef ribs and chicken. Out of those three, brisket is considered the most uniquely Texan, the most difficult to cook given it being really tough, and therefore the key meat on which Texas BBQ is judged.

Brisket naturally comes in both lean and fatty sections, and the one that yields the best flavor and texture, when smoked correctly, is the fatty or ‘moist’ section… so my suggestion is to ask specifically for it. According to central Texas tradition, brisket is ideally slow smoked over real wood (post oak, sometimes mesquite) in a real pit. Gas and commercial smokers are frowned upon. Additionally, it is only seasoned by a dry rub consisting mostly, if not entirely, of salt and pepper. No marinades or basting allowed. It takes a lot of experience and skill to get the best results consistently this old fashioned way, but the reward should be some of the best meat you have ever eaten. These are the key characteristics of a brisket done right: moist, tender, good crust, rendered fat, and deep smoky flavor.

Rendered fat is fat that has basically melted so that few actual ‘globs’ of fat are left in the brisket…and what globs there are melt in your mouth and are not gristly at all. This also leads to the meat being tender and moist. The smoking process actually bastes the meat in its own fat. As far as the crust, the rub should have mixed with the smoke, heat and fat to form a very flavorful bark or black on the brisket. The blackened ends of a good brisket are usually the most coveted. And finally…smokiness. Often you get moist and tender brisket that tastes like really good roast beef…but we are after BBQ here, and a deep smoky flavor throughout the whole meat is desired.

You may notice I never mentioned sauce. That is because if BBQ is done right it doesn't need any sauce. One of the places we will go to (Kreuz, former #1) doesn't even have sauce. I really didn't understand this until I had really good BBQ last year, and now I hate it if I have to use the sauce somehwere...and I really like sauce (generally speaking).

For pork ribs, many of the same things are desired: moist, tender, crusty, and smokey. You will see two styles of ribs this Saturday, some with only a salt and pepper rub similar to the brisket, and others with a sweet glaze. I can’t decide which is my favorite.

And finally, the sausage. Sausage varies greatly from place to place, but in at least Lockhart and Luling, the sausage is primarily all beef sausage and pretty different compared to most other places I have been to. If you aren’t familiar with this style of sausage, which I think owes its uniqueness to the heritage of German and Czech meat markets that birthed this kind of BBQ, it may surprise you somewhat. I love it, though, and can barely eat plain store quality pork sausage anymore. It’s often judged on how coarse the grind is (almost like ground beef shoved in the casing) and how much snap the casing has. I think rating sausage is the most subjective process of the three meats.

If you’ve read this, I apologize for wasting your time pontificating on meat. BBQ is better enjoyed through eating than reading. See you on Saturday! Don't be late or you are going to need your own map or GPS.

-casey (fat boy) birch

Recap of 1 John 4 and 5

Sunday July 2nd - 1 John 4:7 – 5:3

Obviously, the main theme of this passage is love. This is the third time John has taken time in his letter to address the importance of loving ‘the brothers’. While the central theme is enforced and reinforced each time, John also adds a new aspect each time to the teaching. In chapter 2, John presents love for other believers as obedience to God’s commands, and as evidence of knowing Him. In chapter 3 he adds that we love because Jesus loved us; and that as he laid down his life for us, we should lay down our lives for each other…loving in action and not just talk. Here in chapter 4 John focuses on love in three basic concepts.

1. Those who truly love God love their fellow Christians. In the span of 18 verses, this thought is stated about 10 times in one form or another.

2. We love, because God is love, and he loved us first by sending us Jesus. “God is love” is the new concept here and I think unique to 1 John, at least in terms of being explicitly stated. Three ways of understanding this passage as I said it aloud, putting stress on different words. First, it is only in god we find perfect love. The world desperately tries to find love in so many things and people, but it is found only in God. Secondly, God is love right now. We might be tempted at times to think of God as being loving when he sent Jesus, or when thinking of being in heaven with him in the future, but often forget to understand that God is love right now…and will be forever. And finally…everything that love truly is and should be…is found in God. The ultimate expression of love is what God is and came to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

3. Jesus and his life was/is God’s love for us in that he died for us. That death paid the price for our sins. That death brought us, who were in death, into eternal life. That death provides for us to be free from fear of judgment.

And this is why it is an imperative that we love, and one reason why John seemingly uses it as the prime example of obedience and knowledge of God…because God himself is love, and our relationship with him through Christ is solely due to an act of love. It is the basis of our relationship with God. And when John stresses the importance of believing the right things about Jesus (all God, all man, and the Christ), those are the things which underline and emphasize his act of love that saves us.

So as much as the idealists in our world hope for love without God…it is impossible. You can’t have one without the other.


Sunday July 9th - 1 John 5:4-21

In verses 4 and 5 John tells us that we have and will overcome the world. Defining the world as the systems and values of fallen humanity, we discussed what this really means. There are several levels I think this could be understood: 1) that ultimately one day God (and us) will triumph over evil decisively and eternally, 2) that by believing Jesus now we have already beat the world’s power over us, and 3) we are beating the world’s influence in our lives every day.

But this victory we have by our faith isn’t just by faith for faith’s sake, or positive thinking, it is because of the object of our faith…Jesus Christ. And the testimony of Jesus (who came to us through blood and water as a man) is presented to us through his baptism (water), and his crucifixion (blood) and subsequent resurrection. And the Holy Spirit, as it descended on Christ at his baptism like a dove, testifies of him to us now and dwells in us, giving us eternal life. God’s children will live forever.

So we should approach God in prayer knowing he will hear and answer us according to his will. And what is more according to his will than that his children overcome their sin. So we should expectantly pray for each other when we sin. Now, sinning unto death is a phrase that is somewhat confusing to us, but I’m inclined to believe that is doesn’t refer to one particular sin, but more to the person that is in open rebellion against God according to what John has laid in this letter. This rebellion would be characterized by: refusing to believe the truth of who Jesus is and what he did, refusing to love other Christians, and giving no heed to obeying God’s commands. Those who are described as thus are in death, even as we are in life.

God has promised to keep those safe from sin and death those who are his children…and apparently he uses our love and prayers for each other’s sin to do this.
With such a God…how can we entertain thoughts of putting anything else before him (idols)?

I’ve really loved digging deep in 1 John and teaching it, and I look forward to continue to understand and teach the word of God in this class. But before we move on, Caleb will teach on these same passages the next couple of weeks with an emphasis on how we apply these truths to our everyday lives.