Eternal God, unchanging Mysterious and unknown Your boundless love, unfailing In grace and mercy shown Bright seraphim in ceaseless flight around Your glorious throne They raise their voices day and night in praise to You alone Hallelujah, Glory be to our great God
Lord, we are weak and frail Helpless in the storm Surround us with Your angels Hold us in Your arms Our cold and ruthless enemy, his pleasure is our harm Rise up, O Lord, and he will flee before our sovereign God
Let every creature in the sea and every flying bird Let every mountain, every field and valley of the earth Let all the moons and all the stars in all the universe Sing praises to the living God who rules them by His word
This is what I am presenting not only to our pastor, the elders, and the students themselves, but I'm going to mail this home to every parent of our youth so they know "what we're doing" when we gather together and what the goal of our meeting together is. I trust this will be helpful to those who check out this blog...
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I want to make clear some of the foundational truths that we stand on here at ChristCommunityChurch’s youth ministry:
Our youth group is built upon 5 pillars
Extolling God’s Character
It is our commitment to extol the absolute and utter sovereignty of God (Ps 93:1; Isa 46:10; Rev 19:6). The Bible clearly explains that God is holy (Lev 19:2), just (Deut 32:4), loving (1 John 4:8), merciful (Deut 4:31), gracious (Neh 9:17), angry with sin (Ps 7:11), and able to save (Eph 2:8-10; 2 Tim 1:9). We commit to extolling God’s character as we come together to worship corporately (Heb 10:25), and individually in the privacy of our own lives (1 Cor 10:31). Soli Deo Gloria.
Explaining God’s Word
It is our commitment to explain God’s Word as we faithfully interpret and accurately apply God’s Word to the hearts and lives of our students (Neh 8:8). First and foremost, this requires the teacher to make certain his heart is right before God as he studies and prepares his own heart in order to be a pure vessel fit for the Master’s service in explaining and teaching the Scriptures to others (1 Tim 4:13-16). We commit to make the teaching of God’s Word the primary focus of our youth meetings—whether we are working through a book of the Bible, going through a topical study, or simply observing a singular text—so that the students know what God has to say. For after all, God has given us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3-4).
Enthusiastically Worshiping God
It is our commitment to worship God in a way that is true, spirit-based, controlled, and yet enthusiastically joyful (Ps 100:1, 4). We desire to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We believe that God has revealed that He is, indeed, the God of gods and must solely be worshipped (Ps 96:5). He is to be worshipped with awe and joy (Ps 2:11). However, it is altogether recognized that this enthusiasm in worshipping God only comes from the Holy Spirit (John 3:8) when one has been born-again by the Spirit of God (John 3:3) to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4; Eph 4:1) growing in sanctification (1 Thess 4:3; Heb 12:14). Therefore, worshipping God is something that is never dull or boring but rather sincere and joyous (Ps 32:11)!
Encouraging One Another
It is our commitment to habitually encourage one another (1 Thess 5:11). This may take several forms. First, this may evidence itself in a loving rebuke (Prov 27:5). We are confident that a loving confrontation when another brother sins is the loving thing to do (Gal 6:1; Matt 18:15-18; 2 Tim 4:2). Second, this may be evidenced in verbally encouraging and giving glory to God for what another individual has done (1 Thess 5:14; Heb 3:13). Our goal in encouraging one another is to stimulate one another toward love and good deeds (Heb 10:24) and becoming more Christlike in our private walk with Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:17).
Evangelizing Lost Sinners
It is our commitment to make evangelism a central mark of our ministry. It is clearly stated in the Bible that most people are unbelievers and headed for an eternity in torment in hell (Matt 7:13-14). Therefore, we take it as our responsibility to proclaim the gospel (2 Tim 4:1-2; 2 Cor 3:6) and let God change the heart and draw the sinner to Himself if He deems it best (1 Cor 3:7-8; John 6:44; 1 Pet 1:2-3). Therefore, we make it our ambition to clearly and faithfully proclaim the biblical gospel during each teaching session when we corporately gather together (Acts 17:1-3; 1 Tim 4:13) as well as to personally share the gospel with those we come in contact with day by day (Matt 28:19-20; Acts 8:34-36).
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Blessings.
1 Timothy 4:13-15 13 Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. 14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. 15 Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all.
I'm studying for a series of sermons I'm giving on the Second Coming. We have finally reached the climax in the book of Revelation as our youth group has traversed through the whole book with me!
I am struck with the normality of life which was going on at the time of the flood (Gen 6:5ff). Yet, God suddenly destroyed the world (all of it!) and those who lived on the world except for Noah, his family, and the animals aboard the ark with him.
Interestingly, the same is true today. Many people will live life as normal when Jesus Christ returns (the rapture and the Second Coming). But most Christians who would profess to believe in the soon-coming of our Savior are totally oblivious to the sudden and imminent return of Jesus Christ. Many believers live life without giving any thought to the possibility of meeting Christ at any moment--literally.
I was just pondering this truth. For instance, I'm sitting at my desk at church eating an oatmeal cookie. I had the thought that the Lord could rapture the saints before I take the next bite of my cookie. But to me, that next bite is so certain to happen (Amen!), but how naive we can be to think that Jesus Christ and His catching up of His own could "interrupt" my schedule! How wicked is that thought!
May we all sit back for a moment and ponder the all-too-near reality that Jesus Christ may come before the end of today. And whatever activity you were engaged in; whatever thought you were pondering; whatever place you were visiting, you may be caught up to meet the Lord in the air before that activity or thought is over or before you leave a place you're visiting. Let us remember afresh the fact that in a "twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor 15:52), we may be transported to the very presence of our Glorious Savior.
From Tom Schreiner's recent New Testament Theology:
“The purpose of life is to honor God, though again, John insists that God cannot be honored if Jesus Christ is not honored (John 5:23). The purpose of every life is to honor God in Christ, which fits, of course, with the major thesis that I put forth in this book [“the centrality of God in Christ is the foundational theme for the narrative unfolded in the NT”; p.119]. The Father is glorified if people bear much fruit (John 15:8), and this fruit likely involves both Christian character and the spread of the gospel so that others receive eternal life (p.138).
It's said when so many OT scholars today question the historicity of the biblical accounts. In fact, would it be an overstatement to say that "most" scholars question Iron Age Israel? Can the biblical account speak for itself and be authoritative enough to lay the foundation upon which everything else is built? Apparently not.
"The modern state of OT scholarship is in a state of crisis," says Dr. V. Philips Long ("Introduction," in Windows into Old Testament History: Evidence, Argument, and the Crisis of "Biblical Israel," Ed. by V. Philips Long, David W. Baker, and Gordon J. Wenham [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002], 1), and I concur with him.
I wish that the biblical accounts in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles were sufficient enough--but apparently not.
I like what Jesus has to say referring to God and His Word (of which the OT is a part):
John 17:17 "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
I was a privileged man today. I had the great opportunity of visiting a friend in the hospital. If there could be a man who talked too much about heaven--this would be the guy! Every time I see him (literally!) he reminds me that we will, one day (soon!), be with the King of kings and Lord of lords! He always speaks of being in Glory and seeing our Savior face to face and worshipping him without any sinful tendencies or motives.
While he was lying in bed, I asked him what I could read for him from God's Word to encourage him. He said he wanted to hear 1 Peter 5. So I read the chapter slowly and with a loud voice (for the doctors in and outside the room to hear and afterwards we had a great talk on that day "when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory" (1 Pet 5:4).
If there was one truth which convicted me today, it was the simple fact that I--as a seminary student and as a preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ--don't exemplify the exuberate and joyful and unquenchable longing for the soon return of our Savior as I should. If you were to ask me: "Geoff, do you long for the return of Christ?" I'd respond by quickly affirming, "Yes, I do." But, I want, I really want, that kind of constant, unquenchable, and joyful attitude knowing that I will, all because of God's unconditional grace and mercy, receive that crown of glory--soon! I went to the hospital to be a blessing to another. Yet, I was the one who was truly blessed! Praise God.
On a not too distant note, I like what Phil Johnson wrote today about God loving all men yet being angry with the sinner:
I believe Scripture plainly teaches that there is a true and significant sense in which God loves even those whom He hates. Scripture says His mercies are over all His works (Psalm 145:9). He cannot hate His own creatures with a pure and undiluted hatred, because they are the works of His hands. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44-45 that the way to be like God is to love even our enemies.God's eternal love for his elect is unique, and reserved for them alone. But we understand that there is more than one kind of love, even in the realm of human relationships. My love for my wife is vastly greater—and a different kind of love—from my love for my neighbor. But my love for my neighbor is no less love, and not a mere pretense.In a similar way, God loves the reprobate differently—a love of compassion; not a redemptive love. But He does love them and His plea for them to be reconciled with Him (2 Corinthians 5:20) is well-meant.
After the above, no one will be shocked to find out thirty-five percent of Covenant's faculty members say they're likely to vote for Senator Obama. That's one third of the faculty supporting the presidential candidacy of the most radically pro-baby slaughter politician in Washington D.C.
And again--and even more shockingly:
Interestingly, only half the faculty members considered "abortion" to be "Very important" in their selection in their anticipated vote for a presidential candidate. This means half of the faculty members made a conscious decision to respond that abortion was not "Very important." What got a higher rating than abortion? "Social justice." Abortion had a rating average of 3.23 whereas "Social justice" won with 3.40. (Ten faculty members responded that abortion was either "Not important" (2) or only "Somewhat important" (8), but only one faculty member responded that social justice was "Not important" and just two that it was only "Somewhat important." For the top rating, "Very important," three issues tied in the faculty's vote: "Abortion," "Health care," and "Social justice," with "Social justice" taking the honors. Covenant's president, Niel Nielson, might suggest the school's chaplain invite Submergent (they themselves call it Emergent) Church leader, Donald Miller, to visit the campus and preach in chapel along the theme of his mini-sermon given as a bendiction to the Democratic National Convention in Denver last month.
Let us pray that our Christian faculty in some of the leading schools--which are very scant these days--would repent of this wishy-washy theology and take a stand for biblical truth.
Here's a quote with which I'm concluding my sermon on Revelation 19:1-10 by the old 19th century preacher, George Livingstone Robinson:
Let us picture to ourselves that celestial coronation scene. Jesus our King seated on the throne of heaven, surrounded with glory, His kingdom universal, His enemies under His feet, Satan vanquished, earthly magistrates and potentates, sages and kings, armies and emperors, bowing submissively before Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords; hymns of praise chanted by the heavenly choir; tributes of adoration by the saints clothed in white; His elect singing hallelujahs to Him that sitteth upon the throne of God most high, and worshiping multitudes raising their voices in songs of triumph, as God the Father places upon His brow the crown of victory! Oh, Jesus, thou art the monarch of the skies, thou art king of heaven and of earth!
Ah, my dear friends, we want nothing in these times for revival in the world but the simple preaching of the gospel. This is the great battering ram that shall dash down the bulwarks of iniquity. This is the great light that shall scatter the darkness. We need not that men should be adopting new schemes and new plans. We are glad of the agencies and assistance which are continually arising; but after all, the true Jerusalem blade, the sword that can cut to the piercing asunder of the joints and marrow, is the preaching of the Word of God. We must never neglect it, never despise it. The age in which the pulpit is despised, will be an age in which gospel truth will cease to be honored….God forbid that we should begin to depreciate preaching. Let us still honor it; let us look to it as God’s ordained instrumentality, and we shall yet see in the world a repetition of great wonders wrought by preaching in the name of Jesus Christ.
There is a clear progression [in human history] toward a goal. The goal is the consummation of the kingdom of God, in which human beings glorify God by exercising rule over this planet in his name and by serving and enjoying him forever. The glory of God is the highest of all ends and purposes (Larry R. Helyer, Yesterday, Today, and Forever [Salem, WI: Sheffield, 1996], 255).
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
"Indeed, the Christian believer possesses an ideal completeness in Christ. Since the fullness of the Godhead indwelt Christ, and since believers are in the exalted Lord, Paul could affirm, "you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the Head over every power and authority" (Col 2:10; John 1:16).
Hear Martin Luther speak to this:
Through faith you are so closely united with Christ ... that you can say with confidence ... Christ's righteousness, victory, life, etc., are mine; and Christ, in turn, says: I am this sinner, that is, his sins, death, etc., are Mine because he clings to Me and I to him; for through faith we have been joined together into one flesh and bone!
Well, I'm off to six flags tonight to see if my youth group can hang upside-down with their youth pastor. Yes, you are reading my intended meaning; I intend to go on the roller-coasters that go upside-down over and overand overagain! Can they handle it?
I want to be quick to follow yesterday's post with the gospel truth that you can be saved from hell. Here is a simple reminder from Ephesians 2:1-10 that the Gospel is the greatest news one could ever hear!
1. We are dead in sin (1-3)
Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
2. We are helpless apart from God’s intervention (4-6)
Ephesians 2:4-6 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
3. We are made to demonstrate God’s glory (7)
Ephesians 2:7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
4. We are saved by grace through faith (8-9)
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
5. We are saved resulting in a life of good works (10)
Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Finally, recognize the urgency to heed these biblical truths and do not linger!
2 Corinthians 6:2 Behold, now is "THE ACCEPTABLE TIME," behold, now is "THE DAY OF SALVATION "—
Hebrews 4:7 He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS."
Let us not forget that we stand at the edge of eternity. Whenever God sovereignly chooses to end one's life, we must bear in mind that heaven (for some) and hell (for most) are closer than we may think.
I heard read this quote today and it gripped me. If you read it and it doesn't make you stop and think: read it over again--and again.
"Religion inflames the imaginations of men with a good opinion of their own state, so that nothing can disturb them."
Let us not forget that many people who are religious will close their eyes in death and awake in the shrieks and torments of eternal hell. We must not minimize the reality of eternity--an eternity under the wrath of an infinite Being. Hear Jonathan Edwards speak regarding this subject:
"If it seemed real unto men that there is a hell of everlasting burnings, that all that die impenitent and unconverted must immediately be cast into as soon as they die, and never be delivered from, it would be impossible in nature and a self-contradiction that they should be easy and merry, and that they should go cheerfully about their worldly business and recreations while they are in an impenitent and unconverted condition--as impossible as it is for a man to love pain and delight in being miserable"
Edwards is dead on. If the world recognized that they walk along an old, ragged, moth-eaten cloth over the pit of hell, and yet it is the sheer mercy of God that, at any one moment, doesn't drop them through that garment into the eternal misery of hell, there is no way that people could rejoice in life because of the eternity that awaits them.
There is a problem, however. And that problem is that people don't believe this truth. Either they don't know it or, most probably, they refuse to believe this truth. For a believer who truly understands the glorious truth that he has been saved from sin, saved from God's wrath, and justified because of Jesus Christ's substitutionary death, then that concept will instill the fear of God him.
Yet, as it has been said, "If you are not afraid of hell, you are almost certainly going there" (Gerstner, Repent or Perish, 13). We as preachers must not shy away from preaching on the horrors and agonizing torments of this eternal place--even if it scares people. As Spurgeon said: "I'll scare people into the Kingdom if I have to."
Is it appropriate for a preacher to herald the horrors of hell? Some think so. Here is a proposed proposal that preachers should wrestle with:
1. The sinner is threatened with the horrible hell he so justly deserves unless he accepts Christ's undeserved salvation. 2. But he hates the Christ who alone can save him. 3. That hatred can only be removed, and a believing heart bestowed in its place, by sovereign divine mercy and the irresistible call of God the Holy Spirit. 4. So the sinner must seek God's mercy, which will come, if God pleases, only by divine regeneration.
Therefore, the effect of biblical scare preaching is, therefore, to set a sinner to seeking salvation. In a word, scare preaching is to produce: not salvation, but the seeking of salvation.
