Youth character series overview (January 6 2016)

10 Character tests So many things in life are so hard to measure. Success is hard to measure, no matter what you are doing with your life there will either be somone doing better, or someone who makes it appear that they are doing better. Also, if you are doing really good at something, there will be someone who is better at something else than you are. I used to love the song I want to leave a legacy, in the chorus were the words: I wanna leave a legacy, how will they remember me? Did I choose to love, did I turn to you enough. Make my life a humble offering. We all want to be remembered, there isn’t one of us that doesn’t. I will tell you I have grown to love the things I do being remembered more than me. When I was 17 starting out doing a little youth ministry I wanted to be a front and center doing it all and getting all of the credit guy. About 2-3 years later I began loving and chosing opportunities to do things behind the scenes, I loved hearing people talk about it and loved even more that they couldn’t quite put their finger on exactly who did it. Those come with the development of your character. Character is very easy to measure. I dare say there is nothing easier to measure than someone else’s character. Let me restate that, there is NOTHING easier to measure than someone else’s character. There is nothing tougher than measuring our own character. There are those people who are too lenient on themselves. Well, people change, times change, things change, blah blah blah. Then, there are people that are too hard on themselves. And there are people caught in the middle. So what I want to do is help you, in my LEssofme mindset for 2016 measure your character. I am going to lay out 10 ways we can do it, then I am going to elaborate on each of them over the next 10 weeks. Not to challenge or question your character, but to let you measure it. First and foremost, before we talk any more the bottom line is this. Your character can only be compared to that of Jesus. The end, no further explanation needed. The mistakes we make are greater when we measure our character in other ways like: Peers – Parents – Pastors – Coaches/leaders – Good people – So here is the ten checklist in no particular order, some of them are a little humorous but if you have been in the situation you will get it immediately. 1. What you think when someone takes your parking spot, or your driving lane 2. How you react to slow internet or phone connection: Anyone who knows me knows that most days I am wide open. I mean if you are 25 years or older you should be able to recall the days of dial up. If any of our kids had to sit and look at or listen to the dial up sounds the way we had to when the internet first hit they would go crazy. How do you react when the things you count on aren’t ready when YOU need them to be. 3. The gap between what you think and what you actually say when someone compliments you: Christians are so famous for false humility aren’t we. We accomplish something huge and we are greeted with applause or congrats. WE answer it with oh it wasn’t me it was God, or it wasn’t much. Jeff awesome job Sunday, that was a great message: Thanks, it wasn’t me it was God(I am positive God would preach it better) Hey _________ great job, that was awesome! You say, thanks it really wasn’t much. You think, Heck yeah! I rocked it, you better not forget it. You say, I am not so sure I really deserve all of theat. You think, Yes I do, it’s about time someone recognized. C.S. Lewis said, true humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. 4. How you respond to critics: Haters gonna hate. We all walk around with this puffed up attitude that we have haters. I don’t get it, I know everyone is a critic but come on with the haters thing, it’s ridiculous. How do you react when someone criticizes you? 1 – do you hate back , start listing reasons they can’t talk 2 – Start telling them reasons why they are wrong 3- Start attacking them and their weaknesses What if when someone criticized you, you said thank you(even if it is silently) because I will tell you this, people usually don’t criticize people or things they don’t care about. 5. What you tell yourself when you make a mistake: There are two different types of people when it comes to this reaction and I am going to have a grading scale for you to place yourself on when we study this one further. You are a loser, you are such a failure and always will be --------------------- there must be a mistake, I don’t mess up. 6. How big is the gap between who you told people you were 5 years ago and who you are today: The people who can make the biggest impact for God whether we like it or not is people who lived contrary to Him. In other words a convict, felon, thief or drug addict can make a bigger impact than 90% of Christians because they have personally experienced the grace of God and the love of Jesus in a way that people will be blown away by. A backsliding Christian who becomes luke warm, acts the way they used to condemn will make less impact because they look like a hypocrite. I am not bragging at all, okay maybe a little, but I had a friend who I hadn’t been around in a while. He said to me, you know why it was so great talking to you again, and why I trusted you so fast? Because you have never changed, same old Jeff. Most people call that boring, you will learn to call it consistency and people resepect that. 7. How you react when someone overfills the trash and doesn’t take it out: Oh Josh, my live in youth intern. We used to have a contest, whoever went to put trash in the kitchen trash can and it didn’t stay had to take it out. Let me tell you, we jumped up and down, smashed it in there until the sides were bulging on the can. When you did have to take it out, it was impossible to get it out, and even more impossible to get it out of the can without stuff flying everywhere. I am sure it drove Tara crazy. Truth is, when you walk by you want to just drop your trash in, having to stop what you are doing and take the trash out is a huge inconvenience for you, but remember it was a huge inconvenience for the last 10 trips by and several people as well. 8. Your social media voice: What looks important to others? I can tell you what kind of person most people are by what they post, but I can’t do it for myself. I see parents and grandparents posting stuff about their kids/grandkids all the time and I love it. I know teens hate it and that is why snapchat is so much cooler to them because they can post their own hundred pictures a day while complaining about adults posting 2-3 a week lol. What does your voice say? Who are you vs. who do people think you are? Social media voice is so important and people don’t get it. What do you do when you find out someone is dating someone, if you don’t know them you go straight to their social media to try and see what you personally think of them. All you can go off of is what you can see, and 9 times out of 10 you will find something you don’t like. 9. How you react to other people’s social media voice: How angry do you get when people post something contrary to what you believe? Politically, religiously, taste in sports teams?etc……. 10. How you return the shopping cart: If you truly want to know how humble you are, think about how you returned the shopping cart the last 5 times you shopped with one. You were in a hurry and left it in a parking spot(blocking others from parking, making more work for the workers, possibly scratching or denting someone else’s vehicle). You had some trash and left it in there because you didn’t want it in your vehicle.(leaving stuff someone else would have to take care of) This whole series came from a quiet time I had in my pastoral care email one morning. Character is so important, it is so much more than what we give it credit for and some worry too much about it, and some don’t care enough about it either way it’s still there and it isn’t going away because you try to ignore it.