New Life Church

Bootcamp Update

We had a great time at Bootcamp this summer, worshipping, discussing, and studying God's Word together! We focused on many of the battles that men face everyday and sharpen ourselves by studying scripture together. 

If you were unable to make it to Bootcamp or just missed a week or two, check below to see what you missed and to get the reading plan for the week.

 

Week 1 - Battle to Keep the Gospel Central

Pastor Steve shared about how when we keep the Gospel as the central thing in our lives it bears fruit and grows within us.  (Colossians 1:3-14)

Week 1 Study Plan

Read one passage each day using the Observation, Interpretation, Application method:

• Colossians 1:15-23
• Romans 5:12-21
• Galatians 3:1-14
• Romans 5:1-11
• Philippians 2:1-16
• 1 Corinthians 15:12-24

 

Week 2 - Battle for an Effective Prayer Life

Rod Bradley shared six things that we need to keep in mind when we pray:

• Pray - You get better at something by doing it. (Matthew 6:5, 6, & 7 all begin "and when you pray")
• The preface to prayer is humility - we are put on earth to give God glory! (Matthew 6:7)
• Have a plan (Mark 1:35)
• Never, EVER give up! (Luke 18:1-8)
• Prayer is spiritual warfare (Mark 9:14-29, Daniel 10:10-14)
• There are conditions to prayers being answered:
  • Praying in Jesus' Name i.e. praying with the mind of Jesus (John 14:13)
  • Do your prayers glorify God? (John 14:13)
  • Are you obeying God?
  • Believe & do not doubt (James 1:6-8)
  • Be specific (Matthew 7:7-11)
  • Forgive others as you have been forgiven (Matthew 6:12-14)

 

Week 2 Study Plan

Read one passage each day using the Observation, Interpretation, Application method:

• Matthew 6:5-15
• Psalm 19:1-14
• Psalm 51:1-17
• 1 Kings 3:5-14
• John 17:1-26
• Daniel 2:17-23

Week 3 - Battle Against the Flesh

Pastor Claude shared that the battle against the flesh is really a battle for holiness.

We are in a three front war:

• The world (philosophies, messages, and concepts that are 180 degrees from God)
• The flesh
• The enemy

James 1:13-15 tells us that sin is a choice.  If we have the Holy Spirit in us, we have the choice to sin or to obey Jesus.

But, often in this battle, we go into sin management mode and we get depressed or down on ourselves every time we fail.

James 4:7 gives us the key: "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."  Too often we try to resist the devil on our own power.  We don't first submit to God.

So, how do we submit to God:

• Look to Jesus (study the Gospel, meditate on the cross)
• Know who you are...a child of God and royal heir to the throne
• Make the choice to do what you know to do.  The more we make the choice to obey, the more He takes those sinful desires away.

 

Recommended Reading: "Birthright: Christian, Do You Know Who You Are?" by David Needham

Week 3 Study Plan

Read one passage each day using the Observation, Interpretation, Application method:

• Galatians 5:16-26
• Hebrews 12:1-13
• Jeremiah 17:5-13
• Romans 7:14-25
• Romans 8:1-11
• Colossians 3:1-17

Week 4 - Battle Against the Enemy

Alan Budd shared some truths and lies with regard to Spiritual Warfare.

Spiritual Warfare Truths:

1. There is an invisible world. (Ephesians 6:12)

2. There are 3 schemes of attack:

• The World (1 John 2:16)
• The Flesh (Mark 7:21-23, Galatians 5:19-21, Colossians 3:5-8, James 1:14-15)
• The Devil

 

Spiritual Warfare Lies:

1. God and Satan are in some cosmic war that we are unsure how it will end. (Colossians 2:13-15)

• Christ IS the victor.
• The battle is on, but the war is over!
• Jesus stated, "It is finished."

 

2. I can have secret sin and walk fully in the Spirit ready for an attack. (1 John 4:4)

• Sinful desires of the flesh are opposed to the desires of the Spirit.
• Fasten on the belt of truth.
• Truth refers to the practical application of openness and honesty in all things with God and men.

 

3. In your battles, you can defeat the devil on your own. (1 Peter 5:8-11)

• Do not puff yourself up making yourself less prepared. (James 4:7-8)
• It all comes back to the Gospel.
• We fight not for victory, but from victory.

 

Prepare for Battle!

• We need to know the Gospel. (1 Corinthians 15:1-5, Ephesians 2:1-9)
• We need to pray for one another. (Ephesians 6:18-20)
• We need to put on the armor of God. (Ephesians 6:10-17)

 

Week 4 Study Plan

Read one passage each day using the Observation, Interpretation, Application method:

• Ephesians 6:10-20
• 1 John 4:1-6
• Job 1:6-22
• Luke 4:1-13
• 1 Peter 5:1-11
• 2 Corinthians 4:1-7

Week 5 - Battle for our Priorities

Pastor Brian shared what the battle for our priorities really comes down to.

Before you start make two lists: 1) A priority list as you think it should be, and 2) A priority list as you think it actually exists in your life.

Let's start in a bit of an unusual place when talking about priorities:

• Justification - The work of God where the righteousness of Jesus is reckoned to the sinner so the sinner is declared by God as being righteous under the Law.
• Sanctification - The processes of being set apart for God's work and being conformed to the image of Christ.

Where justification is a legal declaration that is instantatneous, sanctification is a process.  Where justification comes from outside of us (from God), sanctification comes from God within us by the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Sanctification consists of the daily realization that in Christ we have died and in Christ we have been raised.  The Gospel resurrects us and out of that comes reformation!  Daily reformation is the fruit of daily resurrection.  To get it the other way around (which we always do by default) is to miss the power and point of the Gospel.  If we think that reformation alone makes us holy, we have forgotten Christ's work of resurrection in us and we start to depend upon ourself.

The idea of setting priorities needs to come out of this understanding.  Christ has finished the work for us, but if we do not live in the centrality of this truth, we will end up frustrated; striving for something that is ALREADY DONE!

To focus on how I'm doing more than on what Christ has done is Christian narcissism - the poison of self-absorbtion which undermines the power of the gospel in our lives.  Martin Luther put it like this, "the sin underneath all our sins is the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and that we must take matters into our own hands."

In other words, moral renovation is to refocus our eyes away from ourselves to that Man's obedience, to that Man's cross, to that Man's blood...to that Man's death and resurrection!  Learning daily to love this glorious exchange, to lean on its finishedness, and to live under its banner is what it means to be morally reformed!

Our priorities reveal what we believe about our justification and sanctification.  Are we making Christ our core and allowing all of our behavior (with family, work, church, etc.) to be changed by focusing daily on the truth of what has already been done for us...or have we created a bunch of to do lists where we check off our prayer box and our Bible box and our wife box and our work box, etc.?

 

Week 5 Study Plan

Read one passage each day using the Observation, Interpretation, Application method:

• Ecclesiastes 1:1-11, 12:13-14
• Luke 2:41-52
• Matthew 6:19-34
• Matthew 10:28-39
• Matthew 16:21-28
• Matthew 22:34-40

 

Week 6 - Battle for Discipline

Josh Boggs shared some ways to be disciplined.

Most of us know that we need to be disciplined, but the word has gotten a negative connotation because the world makes us think being disciplined is about what we do.  When you present it in that way, being disciplined puts all the pressure on us to do more, but as Pastor Brian discussed last week, this battle also has more to do with what has already been done and less to do with what we need to do.

Three keys to discipline as found in 2 Peter 1:3-12:

1) Focus not on what WE need to do but on what GOD has already done for us.

Like Claude discussed in week 3, you can try harder and get some results for a while, but the only way to see lasting change in your life is to focus on God and let Him take away the desire to sin.  Tullian Tchjividian puts it this way, "imperatives minus indicatives equals impossibilities."  What does that mean?  Imperatives are the things we are told to do (spend time with God, stay away from porn, love your wife & kids, etc.).  Indicatives are the reason behind it.  If we try to obey God without being motivated by what He has already done for us, change is not sustainable. 

Take a look at some of the phrases Peter uses in verses 3 & 4..."HIS divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness...HE called us to HIS OWN glory and excellence...HE has granted to us his precious and very great promises...through THEM you may become partakers of the divine nature."  The only lasting motivation is to understand what Christ did for us and allow the Holy Spirit to use those truths to transform us to be more like him.

2) Supplement our faith with Christ-like qualities.

Peter goes on to say that because of what Christ has already done for us, we need to "make every effort to supplement your faith with virture, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self control, and self control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love...for if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We do not develop one of these attributes and then move on to the next.  The Holy Spirit will work within us to develop each of these in increasing measure over the course of our lives. 

3) We need to continually remind ourselves of what God has already done for us.

If we do not remind ourselves every day, or more frequently, of what Christ has already done for us, we will lose the motivation to continue working with the Holy Spirit to develop the Christ-like qualities we just discussed.  This is why Peter ends the passage by saying "For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.  Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.  For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have."

Peter makes the case that if we are not developing Christ-like qualities, it is because we have forgotten that we have been cleansed from our sins.  To be motivated by that thought, we have to understand the consequences of our sin against God in order to appreciate the enormity of the grace and love Christ showed to us by reconciling us to God through the cross.

Peter also knows human nature.  Based on his own experience, he knew taht if we do not preach the Gospel to ourselves on a daily basis, we will not have the discipline to do the things that we know we should.

Practical application - Psalm 46:10

One practical way to be disciplined based on this knowledge from Peter can be found in Psalm 46:10, which says "Be still and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"  One of the most difficult things we can do in our society is to stop moving.  But, if we don't force ourselves to stop and focus on God, we will never be disciplined and experience lasting transformation.  This may be the simplest, yet most challenging and most rewarding discipline you could ever experience.

 

Week 6 Study Plan

Read one passage each day using the Observation, Interpretation, Application method:

• 1 Peter 4:1-11
• Psalm 119:1-16
• Daniel 6:1-13
• Philippians 3:12-4:1
• Titus 2:1-15
• Matthew 4:1-11